incubator ideas! post your ideas for home made incubators, whether they work or not~

[quintinp]

You have all the help you would need then.

I bet you have a VERY noisy road with all those birds.

 

[BoutrosBoutrosGalusGalus]

I... surrender! That post ain't never gonna be right! I think people can get the gist of what I mean to add for better temperature control...
BoutrosBoutrosGalusGalus: what'd you use for heating? I've heard lots of people having great success with fish-tank incubators. I wanna build one now! Ijust need a fish tank... your name is the most complex BYC pen name yet.. wow. I had to look at it four times to get it right! But anyways; what's the temperature of the room your tank is in? 70* is perfect and should be cool enough to not die of sweating and not kick your electric bill through the roof.
Try setting he room temp at 70, putting a warm towel over your incubator, and if that's not enough, add a higher wattage bulb. As long as your temps stay betwen 97-101 for the most part, you should have a decent hatch.
P.s! If is still doesn't work, don't give up!

lol its my favorite UN Secretary General http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boutros_boutros

no I actually put an aquarium heater(http://www.amazon.com/06107-Heaters...TMU4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1330481796&sr=8-2) in a bucket of water and stuck that in a cooler to act as an incubator. I had the thought that since a wet bulb thermo at 93 was 99 in the air I figure I could heat the water and get the ambient temp to 100 or so. But I quickly saturated the air and apparently pushed the air temp too far but I just don't know if it was because I was waterlogging the digital thermo-hygrometer. Someone else had their aquarium heater in a water filled glass tube and had gravel around it to absorb the heat from the water. I thought I might pursue that one day but the aquarium heater I had was too large for that.

I just bought another incubator but I still have plans to have an arduino hooked up to a PC power supply with fan and a 12volt heater from harbor freight. http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-rubberized-heater-with-fan-96144.html

 

[kellyn]

BBGG: interesting information. I have a aquarium heatr in my closet... I actually had 2, but one was broken so I cut the cord from it and used the cord on another incubator. I have 3 incubators so far; #2 needed the cord. That car heater... so cool!!! Dude, when my dad goes to harbor freight nevt time I won't be grouching; I'll be looking at that thing!

Wow... 23 posts within 24 hours... must be the most post on a topic I've ever started. But it makes sense, since my other ones were mainly questions. And this is a GREAT topic to chat about~

 

[mpcardona]

Quote:

Well, I haven't built mine yet but this is the one that I'm going to build as soon as I can get to walmart and see if the digital thermometer and humidity reader can be found. I actually have everything else already.

http://www.stormthecastle.com/how-to-make-a/how-to-make-a-homemade-egg-incubator.htm

I'll be posting pictures as I build it. Maybe friday? I don't have any eggs yet, sadly, but that should change in the coming months.

I had to look in hardware. They should have a couple different humidity monitors. For the digital one, it only cost like $9. The old fashion is $3.

Kellyn, Thank you! I hate to waste and would hate to fail. I will try to post pics later of my almost finished incubator.

 

[moetrout]

I just bought another incubator but I still have plans to have an arduino hooked up to a PC power supply with fan and a 12volt heater from harbor freight. http://www.harborfreight.com/12-volt-rubberized-heater-with-fan-96144.html

The specs on this heater says it draws 13 amps! Be careful when hooking it up to a computer power supply, it may not put out that much power.

I am starting a coolerbator tonight. My build is planned to be in the following configuration:

coleman cooler (54 quart I believe)

water heater thermostat with additional holes drilled in it to improve temprature sensitivity

6 - 15 watt light bulbs. If one burns out I doubt it will even affect the temprature. I happen to have on hand about a thousand sockets and bulbs for this so I wanted to make use of them.

1/4" hardware cloth for the bottom and to "fence" off the electrical stuff so the chicks can't get into it

Plexiglass for a window

Thermometer/hygrometer - I will use an indoor/outdoor one with a probe that we already have and will probably buy one more and run both in there

I happen to have a rare 120v ac computer fan (no dc transformer needed). Was used on an old mainframe computer back in the 70's!

PVC egg turner that can be manually turned from the outside. I would like to eventually work out a way to motorize this. Any ideas?

Not sure about the water trays I will use to raise the humidity. I will use the funnel and hose through the cooler drain to fill the trays though.

So far I've only had to buy the $9 hot water heater thermostat. I may have to buy some pvc, not sure if I have that on hand. This bator should come in under 20 bucks! Most of the ideas I am using are from Quintinp. The main differences being the 120v AC fan, 6 small light bulbs instead on one bigger one, all electrical connections will be internal to the bator and in an electrical box enclosure. I have to say (about the last thing there) that I don't like how many people make their connections external to the cooler. It's ugly and only mildly safe. I am building mine in a way that would meet most electrical codes.

Have I fogotten anything? Any suggestions are appreciated. I'll try to take some pics as I go so I can post the build.

 

[wattsjadajoe]

Here is my first coolerbator!!!

I worked well, but after the first hatch, I made some modifications....I have eggs in it right no again, so in-depth pics are out for now.

The water for humidity is a pie pan with a fill hose. I have Colorado rocks in the bottom everywhere! This keeps the heat more constant.
The fan was relocated to blow slowly on the sight glass due to condensation at the higher humidity. I use a 12vdc computer fan but I run the fan at a lower speed with a 9vdc adapter (sorry, I am an electrician).
Instead of using a single lamp, I use a 25watt for constant heat, then the thermostat controlling a 15 watt lamp. I too drilled the thermostat. I keep a 99-100 deg temp....always!
My turner is through the sides so the eggs can be turned from the outside. (the turner/tray in this pic holds 16 eggs, the new design holds 24) When lock down time comes, I remove the wire ties and lay the turner down on the framework. Last time we removed the eggs and placed them flat on the framework, not sure if we will do this again. I also have another 15 watts lamp installed for viewing and excess heat when we candle and allow heat to escape. With the humidity/thermometer and thermostat I have about 15$ invested. All other parts were from reclaimed junk.

Joe

 

[BoutrosBoutrosGalusGalus]

The specs on this heater says it draws 13 amps! Be careful when hooking it up to a computer power supply, it may not put out that much power.

We'll see, the 330 watt power supply I have says it can push 18 amps on the 12v . We'll see if the wiring is up to it. Its a bit of a project which is why I ended up buying a second incubator instead. But with the quail eggs rolling in I may need a third. What have I gotten myself into?

 

[GwenDellAnno]

My incubator looked very similar with one major difference. I had the fan blowing directly over the eggs. WRONG!!! With the fan blowing the way it was, there seemed to be quite a bit of temperature variation over the eggs. It seemed like the thermostat held temperature, just not the section where the eggs were. Especially I had variation when I flipped the eggs. Facing toward the fan I constantly had to turn down the temp, facing away from the fan I had to turn it back up. I'm on day 21, but I candled on day 16 and I'm not sure I'm going to get any hatch at all. (But, my eggs are very dark, so it was hard to tell with some of them. So I'm leaving them for a few more days just in case). Before I put another batch in, I'm going to move the fan so it is over the light bulb (like in the example above).

 

[wattsjadajoe]

We'll see, the 330 watt power supply I have says it can push 18 amps on the 12v . We'll see if the wiring is up to it. Its a bit of a project which is why I ended up buying a second incubator instead. But with the quail eggs rolling in I may need a third. What have I gotten myself into?

Keep in mind that a #12 wire can handle 20amps, #14 wire can handle 15 amps...so make sure you get the right wire size coming from the power supply. If you have questions, I could help.

Joe

 

[moetrout]

Keep in mind that a #12 wire can handle 20amps, #14 wire can handle 15 amps...so make sure you get the right wire size coming from the power supply. If you have questions, I could help.

Joe

Joe that is true for AC, but I imagine it is different for DC, wouldn't it?