- May 2, 2015
- 546
- 71
- 134
About a month ago I told my wife that its time for a new project. My wife told me she wanted a incubator and there was a old wine cooler in the spare room. After browsing the web I couldn't find anything I liked so I decided to play with a few ideas to see if they were feasible.
my first trial was to see if the peltier (thermal cooler used to make the wine cooler cold) could be used as a heater, A peltier is not designed to be turned off and on like a bulb but that did not seem to be a major problem to fix if the peltier could produce the heat required. I wired the peltier backwards to a temp controller and with in a few minutes from cold the temp was stable between 99.4 to 100.2 which confirmed that the idea worked. Unfortunately at this point my wife is standing there with a batch off eggs 0.o.
I tried to warn her that a peltier will not last being switched on and off by a relay but all she heard was blar,blar,blar.
So time to find another wine cooler and start again. Still staying with a peltier design as this will be a 12vdc incubator that will have auto battery back up as our power is bad during the wet season.
Mk2 is a 12 bottle wine cooler. This time I used a arduino programmable micro controller. I bought a kit that included the arduino and some things to plug into it then followed the lessons on how to write code. After a few weeks I seem to have gotten the basics so its was time to start on the cooler,
The peltier is now running off pwm via a mosfet (that's just a fancy way of saying I now turn the peltier off and on thousands of times a second to control the temp). Its funny you can not turn one off and on every few minutes but if you turn it off and on really quickly then its fine.
my first attempt the temp stayed between 98 and 104.....lol
after a few days of playing it stayed between 99 and 102. The problem with a peltier is its a brick. It doesn't react to power changes as there so much stored energy that a automated control just doesn't work plus the 95cent temp sensor was a little unstable.
Upgarded to a $2 sensor and the temp was better. Deleted all the fancy code and just said 100% power until 99.4 then 50% power till 99.5 then 9% power until it starts to drop. Now the temp holds with in 0.1 of a degree. It also recovers after the door has been opened in under a minute so that's one problem solved.
will post more later.
p.s mk 1 is still running strong after one month and has done quail, turkey and pheasant eggs. If I ever get it back I will fix the heater correctly.
my first trial was to see if the peltier (thermal cooler used to make the wine cooler cold) could be used as a heater, A peltier is not designed to be turned off and on like a bulb but that did not seem to be a major problem to fix if the peltier could produce the heat required. I wired the peltier backwards to a temp controller and with in a few minutes from cold the temp was stable between 99.4 to 100.2 which confirmed that the idea worked. Unfortunately at this point my wife is standing there with a batch off eggs 0.o.
I tried to warn her that a peltier will not last being switched on and off by a relay but all she heard was blar,blar,blar.
So time to find another wine cooler and start again. Still staying with a peltier design as this will be a 12vdc incubator that will have auto battery back up as our power is bad during the wet season.
Mk2 is a 12 bottle wine cooler. This time I used a arduino programmable micro controller. I bought a kit that included the arduino and some things to plug into it then followed the lessons on how to write code. After a few weeks I seem to have gotten the basics so its was time to start on the cooler,
The peltier is now running off pwm via a mosfet (that's just a fancy way of saying I now turn the peltier off and on thousands of times a second to control the temp). Its funny you can not turn one off and on every few minutes but if you turn it off and on really quickly then its fine.
my first attempt the temp stayed between 98 and 104.....lol
after a few days of playing it stayed between 99 and 102. The problem with a peltier is its a brick. It doesn't react to power changes as there so much stored energy that a automated control just doesn't work plus the 95cent temp sensor was a little unstable.
Upgarded to a $2 sensor and the temp was better. Deleted all the fancy code and just said 100% power until 99.4 then 50% power till 99.5 then 9% power until it starts to drop. Now the temp holds with in 0.1 of a degree. It also recovers after the door has been opened in under a minute so that's one problem solved.
will post more later.
p.s mk 1 is still running strong after one month and has done quail, turkey and pheasant eggs. If I ever get it back I will fix the heater correctly.
