new to me home built cabinet

[PapaChaz]

well in the 50's is better than the 34% hatch rate I've been getting with my styrofoam inccbators, but yeah isn't anything under 85% or so considered "needing improvement type tweaking'? Of course I realize 100% is rare if ever even possible, but I want as high as I can get obviously

 

[PapaChaz]

going to bore you all with the pics of my WCB mods..... covered the gaping holes the guy put in, and sealed all the smaller ones as well. Then with the help of a couple of the good peeps here on BYC, put some more holes back in, trying to model after their expensive fancy dancy store bought high dollar bators

covered from the bottom, I did the same thing inside, and filled the space between with expandable spray insulation


vent hole in the side. Another one like it in the back center top. Both Eric and GAM said they have two holes in each spot but one stays plugged. I only drilled one, if I need more I can drill more. No point in drilling a hole just to plug it

the two computer fans and the mount I made for them. Used a piece of the metal I had made the box from to cover the original heating element. I put a computer power supply on top and powered these from there

the heating element. I realized after it started heating that it was going to stretch, and I'd need to spread the insulators some. I let it run while we were at church, to see what temps and humidity would be


so when I got home from church, pretty satisfied with the temps and humidity. I'll have to play around with how much exposed water to have in for the different stages of incubation/hatching, but at least I know I can raise it into the 70s. I turned it off to let it cool so I could spread out the insulators and found that the plastic was melting directly above the element at two of the insulators. I left it off over night, went this morning and bought a piece of heat reflective flame retarding rigid insulation board, and cut a piece to cover the whole top inside. Reinstalled the heater and we'll see what it does now. I could quote the flame retardant numbers off the board, but they didn't really mean anything to me, I figure that is surely sufficient to keep the heat away from the plastic

 

[PapaChaz]

as an update:

after playing with different settings, vent holes plugged or opened. Adding another small hole to run the sensor wire through, I let it sit over night without opening it at all. The humidity was level all the way top to bottom as was the temp, so, I moved the eggs I had in the styrofoam incubator into the wine cooler bator (AKA WCB) and we'll see how the hatch goes! hoping for way better than 34%!

 

[pelon la troka]

Nice hope you do good

 

[PapaChaz]

Nice hope you do good

thank you!

I'm going to add 14 more eggs next week and we'll see how that goes. this HAS to be better than those styrofoam things

 

[pelon la troka]

So what humidity level are you going to aim from 1-18 days?

 

[PapaChaz]

So what humidity level are you going to aim from 1-18 days?

somewhere around the 25-30% range for incubating, bumping up at lockdown ten percent the first day and another 10 percent the next day until I have it between 55-60% for hatch day is what I'm shooting for. a few good friends with cabinets who have great success with those numbers are prompting me to go for that range and see. I'm hoping for 85% hatch rater or better

 

[PapaChaz]

since it's stopped raining, the outside humidity has dropped. This meant my bator humidity dropped also. It was at 25% when I got up this morning. I've added a small water container in the very bottom, and it seems to now be staying 29 or 30%. I already know what I need for bumping it into the mid fifties for hatching, so maybe, just maybe, this is going to make for a much better hatch rate!

 

[Hamiltons]

What size holes did you end up with and are they both at the top? As soon as I have some time I will be covering a drink fridge as well. great job making it work so well and good luck with the hatch

 

[PapaChaz]

What size holes did you end up with and are they both at the top? As soon as I have some time I will be covering a drink fridge as well. great job making it work so well and good luck with the hatch

I did a 1" hole in the back behind the fan, and a 1" hole on the side, 4 1/2" from the top and 3" back from the side. I also drilled a 3/8" hole to run the temp sensor through, but it could have just as easily gone through the vent hole on the side. The big this with the drink fridge is the plastic inside. It will melt directly under (or I guess above) the insulators. The tech at GQF told me just to mount some metal in the top, then mount the insulators to that. Which didn't make any sense to me, because after I made the metal box to put around the original heater that was in it, IT got too hot to touch, and in my mind that would melt the plastic and be a fire hazard. The foil faced styrofoam insulation seems to be working great. I did take the screws out and drill holes all the way throught the top, and put a fender washer between the insulator and the foam.

I'll try to post a better picture of it later, right now the wife just called me for supper