Brinsea Octagon 20 ECO Auto Turn Egg Incubator

I have bought a lot of Brinsea products .. way too many actually. Not just two or three either
Their incubators have issues with staying at temp then suddenly overheating and not shutting back down. I have had several do this.. purring along at 99.5 then shoot up to 120 and stay there or climb even high. The fan placement is also horrible. If you have a chick at hatch that makes a large pip then rests REGARDLESS OF HOW HIGH THE HUMIDITY IS.. it stands a very good chance of shrinkwrapping because the fan dries out the membrane. Been there and done that.. (and have seen where others have had the same exact issues). One of the auto turners didn't even make it through one hatch before I had to order replacement parts for it. Every time I would contact Brinsea they made it sound as if I had done something wrong.. yet I have seen many people experience the same problems.
i bought their EcoGlow brooder and had issues with exposed wiring. Brinsea didn't want to do anything about it and gave me the run around until i told them it was a fire hazard. Again they tried to make me feel that exposed wiring on a new product was somehow my fault! Even the candler I bought from them had wiring issues (melting the plastic and getting extremely hot when turned off and left sitting on the counter). Naturally Brinsea customer service tried to pin the blame on me. But silly me. I thought when a product is OFF it shouldn't be heating up and melting it's housing!
i used t be a big fan of their products.. and I used to endorse them.., but I have gotten way too many lemons. So all I can say is let the buyer beware. Sure you MIGHT get lucky if you only buy one or two.. but when you start investing a lot of money in their products you can be sure you will receive some defective ones.Their customer service is horrible and the quality control at their factories is worse.

That was SO sweet of him to buy you an incubator I have Brinsea Mini Advances. Only 7 eggs at a time but auto everything but adding water. Tho one can buy a replenishment system. You need to get the temp up on degree. Go to the Brinsea website. They have BUG forum where you can chat. Brinsea Users Group.
Best,
Karen

I have the Eco 20 and absolutely love it! I've tried other ones that weren't stable. I hatched out late summer and into fall and had 100% hatch rate with mine. I just add water periodically to keep humidity up but have never had to mess with the temp. I don't rely on the on board thermometer and use my digital that also reads humidity. The tray like you stated bows if you try to fill it not in place but that is a minor thing to deal with. I am definitely thinking about buying the 40 after such great success with the 20. Sorry you are having misfortunes with your experience.

I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth & played with the thermostat again a few hours after writing that; we're holding between 99.3 & 99.8 now. Still filling the reservoir about every 30 hours, but that's most likely because we heat with wood, and the house air is very dry.
I AM really liking not having to stop everything & go turn eggs all the time!

I have one I bought a couple weeks ago and it's on day 10 of incubating my quail eggs. Yours didn't come with a thermometer attached to the top? It is supposed to. (In the picture above it's the "line" running to from the center to the bottom left corner of the top.) Mine was also not accurately set and took a little to get it to 99.6ish. It runs from 99.3ish to 100.3ish over a 24 hour period. I'm hoping this is okay. I've not had humidity issues, except maybe the opposite. It's VERY humid where I am and so I've only had to fill it about every 3rd day. I'm actually very happy with mine (though I cracked the first egg I tried putting in because of figuring out how the rails work. Whoever designed them wasn't thinking.) Good luck with your eggs!

@PinkBee - nope, no thermometer. The paperwork has the same photo, but it's not there or listed as included. I'm not sure if I've figured out how the rails work, LOL. I have them a little wider than the eggs (also cracked one on first try); and the eggs have a bit of 'play', but the instructions say it's okay if they clunk around slightly while turning - they're mostly upright and they don't move, so I'm figuring I'll just go with it until someone mentions dome miracle method

I think you should call about the missing thermometer. I believe it's supposed to be there as it's not removable, in the case of mine. As for hatching, my first hatched on day 16 (12/24), then another 11 hatched about 12 hours later, then another 2 hatched 24 hours later (15 total over 2 days' time.) This is many more than I'd originally planned on, but only half of what could have been, so I'm happy! (I think my issue may be both fertility and having to open it up during lockdown to add humidity. How do others keep the humidity up high without opening it? I went from super humid weather here to very dry just before lockdown and so, when I wanted the humidity up, it would crash to the 30%s and 40%s every 12 hours.)

For lockdown, I cut a face cloth in quarters, and put one on each side with the edge in the water well - it did the job (and made cleaning out egg shards easier)
Initially, I added water with a syringe through a piece of aquarium airline I threaded through the vent - that was frustrating, but worked. Also refilled wells when removing hatched chicks. Two of the chicks had what appear to be humidity-related hatch issues, and I lost them - nine are healthy & vigorous, three were lost at or just prior to lockdown, the rest were infertile.
So, Nine healthy chicks, five losses, of which only two could *possibly* be bator related, IMO - and since those could also have been operator action, I'm not going to blame the machine. Overall, I am now pleased with it, and will see if I can adjust rating - if not, I'm now saying it's a 4.5.

Don't you have to open it to put water in?

All subsequent hatches have gone well; average hatch rate is running about 82% with most of the fails being infertile eggs. It's WAY better than the LG!
Answer to another question I was asked - he bought it through an Amazon seller, Avian something - not through Amazon itself.

It should have come with a thermometer I bought 2 of these from Brinsea and both included it, one thermometer came with an air bubble and they replaced It although it was a little like pulling teeth I wish I had the money for the next one up but figured with a regular thermometer things would be less complicated and less money to replace. the humidity works along with the room humidity which helps If your home it on the humid to normal humidity side I just add a extra sponge or jar lid of water. All said and done I really like Brinsea products customer service.... well they are another story they don't like to give anything away and for the price you pay for the incubator they should be more customer service friendly.

Disappointing to hear as I just bought this model a few months ago. I know being stored in a garage or attic type environment can be hard on electronics, not sure how/where you had your stored. Hope you are able to get it repaired! I know I recently looked for a thermometer for mine as I managed to break mine and I could not find a replacement part.

I just realized I posted in the wrong place as my unit is the Octagon 20 model WITHOUT the automatic turner As an update to my original post though, I did receive an email yesterday from Rose, the office manager at Brinsea in Florida, who said they would be happy to repair the incubator. The downside is the cost: the service fee is $25. and I would have to pay for parts and shipping each way. If the control board needs to be replaced the cost is $69.99, and she estimates the shipping at around $20. (not sure if that's one or both ways). I'm having some difficulty weighing the decision of paying for repairs versus buying a new incubator because I don't think I spent that much on it brand new. By the way, it was stored in in a cardboard box inside a rubber storage bin in the basement, which I thought was perfectly safe but in retrospect probably wasn't. Glad you have more common sense than I did!