DIY automatic Humidity apparatus?

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chiqita

chiqita

Crowing
8 Years
Aug 29, 2011
5,430
183
268
San Jose, Ca
I have a refurbed Old redwood humidair incubator, that we have upgraded to digital control. I would LOVE to create an automatic humidity system for it ala the brinsea humidity pumps because my house is hell on humidity. Anyone know of any plans to do something like this? I know its likely to be expensive to put together. I am having a hard time finding plans or ideas.

I found this on incubator warehouse, but it looks like it would still need more parts...

http://incubatorwarehouse.com/plug-...ntrol-in-egg-incubator-reptile-terrarium.html
Thanks for any input.
 
Hi chiqita,

Don't exactly know if this is what your looking for, but here's an idea I've been playing around with... Mind you, this is just an idea... And on the cheap side...

As an humidifier unit, make something using this principle:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Desktop-Humidifier-1/all/?lang=ja

To control the fan switching (on/off), use a simple humidity switch, like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC12V-Humid...240?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27daebfc88

Of course, you don't have humidity level digital display... But you can use an normal analogic hygrometer to monitor the humidity and manually make the initial adjustment to the fan triggering (when the humidity level lowers below a certain level) in the humidity switch potentiometer/trimmer.

Hope this is/was clear.

Like I said, this is just an idea (I haven't tested it!!) to make an cheap "automatic incubator humidifier"... In principle, I think it might work.
tongue.png


Cheers
frow.gif
 
Last edited:
Daedalus62 said:
Hi chiqita,

Don't exactly know if this is what your looking for, but here's an idea I've been playing around with... Mind you, this is just an idea... And on the cheap side...

As an humidifier unit, make something using this principle:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Desktop-Humidifier-1/all/?lang=ja

To control the fan switching (on/off), use a simple humidity switch, like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC12V-Humid...240?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27daebfc88

Of course, you don't have humidity level digital display... But you can use an normal analogic hygrometer to monitor the humidity and manually make the initial adjustment to the fan triggering (when the humidity level lowers below a certain level) in the humidity switch potentiometer/trimmer.

Hope this is/was clear.

Like I said, this is just an idea (I haven't tested it!!) to make an cheap "automatic incubator humidifier"... In principle, I think it might work. :p

Cheers :frow  
Click to expand...

Ohh I will have engineer building guy look at this thanks!
 
Oh he thinks it will work! He thinks my mammoth incubator might need a comercial one Sine is about 5 foot tall and 4 feet deep. Thank you for sharing the plans I will post what we do this weekend!
 
Hi chiqita,

Glad the idea was useful... Even if it's just that, an idea.
smile.png


Ohhh... That's a BIG incubator!!... OK, in the same mood, allow me my opinion... Another one.
roll.png


Might be overkill but, in an incubator that size, I would try making (I'm a cheap, do-it-myself kind of guy
tongue.png
) an outside/independent humidifier unit... Something along this principle:

http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php/129851-DIY-Humidifier

With a tube, directing the misty air from the unit's output to the incubator.

Basically, it ads an ultrasonic mist maker for bigger/faster humidity output:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Ultraso...den_PondsWaterFeatures_UK&hash=item5aefad726a

If you experiment building something along these lines, please share... I'm also curious on the results.
big_smile.png


Cheers
frow.gif
 
Last edited:
Did you guys ever have any luck with this? I'm working on building an incubator and would love to include some automatic humidity control. The humidity switch sounds like a great idea but I would love to know if you guys actually ended up testing it...
 
Hi mirandaleecon,

Yes, I did build this (basically just for test purposes) exactly as I described above... Conclusion: It would work fine, except for a "small" detail
lol.png
...

You need an electronic switch that activates the relay when the humidity lowers, so it turns the humidifier fan on... The switch above does exactly the opposite... It activates when the humidity rises...

No big loss (cheap switch), but If I had read the switch description closely
roll.png
roll.png
...

Meanwhile I abandoned this idea (the switch), because I decided to go the microcontroller way, namely the Arduino... Work in (very slow) progress...

Cheers
 
Daedalus62 said:
Hi mirandaleecon,

Yes, I did build this (basically just for test purposes) exactly as I described above... Conclusion: It would work fine, except for a "small" detail
lol.png
...

You need an electronic switch that activates the relay when the humidity lowers, so it turns the humidifier fan on... The switch above does exactly the opposite... It activates when the humidity rises...

No big loss (cheap switch), but If I had read the switch description closely
roll.png
roll.png
...

Meanwhile I abandoned this idea (the switch), because I decided to go the microcontroller way, namely the Arduino... Work in (very slow) progress...

Cheers
Click to expand...

Thank you for your response! I can't look at the link you posted since it's blocked here (I'm at work, shhh) but I was able to find something that sounds similar on Amazon. From the reviews, it looks like you can change it from activating when humidity lowers to when it rises. Do you think this will work; http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009VXXBCQ/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1BREQ8I6OHSBG

How did you make the humidifier? Did you do the baby wipes container or the 5 gallon bucket one? They seem like they would work as far as providing humidity, I'm just concerned that the fan will blow too cool of air into the incubator and mess up the temperature...
 
You're welcome!

Ohh... Thats a (much) better switch than the one I used... Mine was something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Humidity-sens...988&sr=1-4&keywords=Humidity+sensitive+switch

If you can make it work to activate when the humidity lowers, I'm sure it'll work fine in this configuration.

I went the baby wipes version... Enough for my small styrofoam incubator... The intention was to use it as an external unit, with a plastic tube blowing the (humidified) air through a hole, pointing directly at one of the incandescent lamps that I use as "heating element".

Enough to heat the outside incoming air... However, normally I don't have extreme cold temperatures where I live.
 
Last edited:
Daedalus62 said:
You're welcome!

Ohh... Thats a (much) better switch than the one I used... Mine was something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Humidity-sens...988&sr=1-4&keywords=Humidity+sensitive+switch

If you can make it work to activate when the humidity lowers, I'm sure it'll work fine in this configuration.

I went the baby wipes version... Enough for my small styrofoam incubator... The intention was to use it as an external unit, with a plastic tube blowing the (humidified) air through a hole, pointing directly at one of the incandescent lamps that I use as "heating element".

Enough to heat the outside incoming air... However, normally I don't have extreme cold temperatures where I live.
Click to expand...

Yea it looks pretty good but so far that is the most expensive thing on my list. I guess $25 is worth the convenience in the long run and overall I'm looking at less than $100 for a fully automated incubator, so that's not too bad. I'm waking up in the middle of the night now just to make sure everything is running well in my incubator and I actually just moved all of my duck eggs under a broody hen because it was acting up.

Are you able to get the humidity up to 70% with that? I'm using a mini fridge so there's a bit more space to humidify than most incubators. I found these fogger things for ponds that I think I might try. Might put out too much humidity but I'm sure I can find a way to taper that. Only $10 so it's worth a try. Here it is if you wanna check it out: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PAK21WU/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1155GBV4DPEXU
 

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