My hova has been giving me heartburn in a serious way. Since my house is not climate controlled, it can jump around with the best of them no matter what I do. My floors are heated, so they are steady, but if the outside temp gets real hot or cold real fast (which it can in NM...all in the same breath) the floors don't adjust quickly and neither does the Hova, thus the highs and lows can come about. Plus, don't get me started on the Hova's behavior after a power outage!
After the second outage and resulting temp spike of 104(!!!!) I decided that enough was enough and the incubator that I was going to build in May was going to be built NOW (I still have live ones, btw, which is a miracle if you ask me)...so to the internet...and I found this beauty:
http://www.spyderrobotics.com/products/herpstat.html
because it's a proportional thermostat my highs and lows are minimal and I can check the temp log to see if there has been a spike AND it recovers from me opening the 'bator extremely quickly - less then one minute. YEA!
My fans are on a separate power supply (with back up from 9v battery) so if the room gets hot and the thermostat kicks off the 'bator will begin to cool quickly with all the air circulation. If we have another power outage the jars of water that act as heat sinks will help keep things steady until I can have another heat source. In my heart I'd love to add a UPS (uninteruptable power supply), but it's $200, so not for a while!
A few more rounds of fried eggs and it will be worth it, though!
This box is big and HEAVY. It's a tool box that my DH built ages ago out of 1/2 inch plywood. Takes two of us to move it empty. He liked it that way because he'd take it to Mexico to build houses and, let's just say, full of tools the likelyhood of someone just walking with the whole thing full was pretty low. Individual tools could be swiped, but not a wholesale snatch. But I digress...
The reason I re-allocated the box from DH was that it was big enough to be insulated and still put in the auto-turner plus I have no time right now to build a box. Too many other building projects going on. Anyway, I got a plastic storage bin from Target that the turner fit in, so the amount of insulation you see in the pic was determined by the amount of space between the plastic bin and the plywood box. There is no other reason as the thermostat is good enough to adjust for temp swings quickly.
You will also notice that I chose a ceramic reptile heater as my heat supply. We tried a light bulb and it was too weird watching it grow brighter and dimmer as the thermostat adjusted. I felt that the ceramic heater would be better suited, as this is exactly what it was designed to do, thus less likely to die on me. It just screws into a normal light socket and I wired a plug from and old extension chord to in order to plug into the thermostat. I can add that pic later. It'll make sense when you see it. Very simple. You could have no wiring skills and get this part right.
On each end of the box is a one inch hole to bring air in and push out, plus they allow me to run the electrical chord for the turner and run a tube in for water.
I can post more pics on some of the details of this box later if anyone is interested.
My next problem is that I have a split hatch. Day 18 for the first group is Wed. I am trying to figure out a way to keep everyone in the box at the same time without moving anyone back over to the darn Hovabator. The biggest issue is humidity. What do the folks that have the big cabinet incubators do about the humidity disparity between those hatching and those turning? Inquiring minds would like to know!
You can't tell from the pics, but I can actually take 2x4's and put them underneath the turner and raise it up, which would leave space for those hatching next Sat to be. I also have space enough to put the turner on the 2x4's and move slightly to the right and then portion off with metal cloth a 8x16 space for the hatchers if I don't want them to have access to the space underneath the turner. So all that is manageable, but what about the darn humidity? Right now it sits between 40-50%. In this box it will be easy to jack it way up, but I don't want to drown those in the turner. So, any suggestions ya'll have would be appreciated!
