I have the hovabator 1602N. I added a small fan to it already, but I could not move it out of one room in our house. The incubator could NOT hold a steady temperature if the room was not at least 75-80 degrees. After reading through the forums I found that everyone else had the same issue. So after some scouring and brainstorming I came up with this $20 fix that, so far has had extremely good success. I thought I'd share it with everyone and see what everyone thinks. I welcome any feedback/criticism as any improvements would be welcomed!
So here goes -
I basically made a foam box around the dimensions of the HovaBator. I used a 4x8 sheet I bought from Home Depot for about $14.
I made it pretty straight forward - I used construction adhesive to glue it all together. Doubled the walls so they were a full inch thick all the way around. Clamp, dry.
I got a piece of plexiglass scrap from lowes for under $4. (they said "we don't have scrap pieces" then when I found one of them they gave it to me cheap) I wedged the plexiglass between the two layers of foam for a window.
I made the lid the same size as the top and glued a 2 inch strip to it to cover all the way around the foam box. The cuts on the foam walls were not exact so this lip covers those open gaps. This worked out great because I can run the cords through one of the bigger gaps and it serves as air ventilation. I did drill a few holes in the bottom too for more ventilation.
So far it has worked as good as I could have wanted! Before I could not get above about 92 degrees in any room in my house except for a spare bedroom where we had to keep all the doors closed and air vents shut. Now it holds a temp like a champ. It's not super cold here yet, but I took it outside last night and it was about 69 degrees outside.
Check it out! The outside of the box temp (far left thermometer) is just under 70. The far right thermometer (inside the box but outside the incubator) is at 90! Then my probe temperature shows inside the incubator is holding at 101.5! This shows to me that the hovabator looses a TON of heat. That foam box goes up to 90 in no time.
This is with no eggs or turner in the incubator. Before, without eggs, the temperature was hard to maintain due to nothing inside to keep the temperature up. Now with the foam box keeping a temperature at 90 degrees around the incubator, it has no problem. I will definitely test it in some colder weather when I have a chance. I would like to be able to set this guy in the garage at some point. I'm excited to test this guy out on my next hatch. For $20 it so far seems a lot better choice than spending the dough to upgrade to a better one (or make my own).
So here goes -
I basically made a foam box around the dimensions of the HovaBator. I used a 4x8 sheet I bought from Home Depot for about $14.
I made it pretty straight forward - I used construction adhesive to glue it all together. Doubled the walls so they were a full inch thick all the way around. Clamp, dry.
I got a piece of plexiglass scrap from lowes for under $4. (they said "we don't have scrap pieces" then when I found one of them they gave it to me cheap) I wedged the plexiglass between the two layers of foam for a window.
I made the lid the same size as the top and glued a 2 inch strip to it to cover all the way around the foam box. The cuts on the foam walls were not exact so this lip covers those open gaps. This worked out great because I can run the cords through one of the bigger gaps and it serves as air ventilation. I did drill a few holes in the bottom too for more ventilation.
So far it has worked as good as I could have wanted! Before I could not get above about 92 degrees in any room in my house except for a spare bedroom where we had to keep all the doors closed and air vents shut. Now it holds a temp like a champ. It's not super cold here yet, but I took it outside last night and it was about 69 degrees outside.
Check it out! The outside of the box temp (far left thermometer) is just under 70. The far right thermometer (inside the box but outside the incubator) is at 90! Then my probe temperature shows inside the incubator is holding at 101.5! This shows to me that the hovabator looses a TON of heat. That foam box goes up to 90 in no time.
This is with no eggs or turner in the incubator. Before, without eggs, the temperature was hard to maintain due to nothing inside to keep the temperature up. Now with the foam box keeping a temperature at 90 degrees around the incubator, it has no problem. I will definitely test it in some colder weather when I have a chance. I would like to be able to set this guy in the garage at some point. I'm excited to test this guy out on my next hatch. For $20 it so far seems a lot better choice than spending the dough to upgrade to a better one (or make my own).
