building a incubator from a wine cooler

[gpop1]

ok a few pics of me burning in the hardware.




display is done except for a few small dots of super glue.



the arduino (black board) and all the wiring.




well things that seem to be a problem during the burn in.

sensor for buttons react to the front door being open. Not really a problem as the incubator will not be mounted in full sun light but something to remember.

turner got tight once the aluminum heated up. Simple fix as I left extra washers and spacers. Removed a few and now its better.

motor is strong enough (tested at twice est load) but its junk. If it stops then you tap the motor gently it runs again so im guessing the brushes are sticking. will contact the seller. If I get no joy I will just tear it to bits and see if I can fix it and what the design flaw is before I decide to order another.

Temp display is a little unstable as the power to the peltier is near the setpoint. I fixed this problem last time before the parrot ate the wiring and my ssd drive crashed on the computer but ive no idea how I did it. (I coped someone's fix and can not find the web page)

Had to add a few pull-up and pull down resistors to the board I made. Its no big deal as I made it to be removable and set up for just this kind of event.

still have to test humidity fan with water before I seal the container with silicone (that's tie wrapped at the moment).

still have to install the vent.

waiting for the 60w peltier that's lost at sea between here and china I think this one is around 40w judging by the amp readings so a little extra power wont hurt. After 10 mins from 74f its up to temp but I would like that to be quicker.

thinking of installing another fan to keep air moving but will have to wait until I test at least 4 diffrent areas to see if temp is equal.

basic code to write on the menu. I started but don't want to get to far and have to go back if I make a hardware change.

fix the turner motor or replace, (test code worked well so that was good)

 

[gpop1]

code bashed 90% of the code. Just waiting for yellowherb to get a chance to test the interface to make sure it works and makes sense.

test runs seem fine just need to replace the motor and test humidity with water.

 

[gpop1]

motor is fixed. Turns out the brush holder was not fully installed or had got damaged in shipping.
If the seller was local I would have returned it but the seller is from overseas so I know they normally have no problem with replacing parts but the 4 weeks shipping would have been a spoiler.


turner has run every 2 minutes for the last few hours so im happy.

 

[wynn4578]

The further you go the more I realize that I just need to go straight to the Pi. My Temp and humidity displays are hooked to my styro incubator while they wait for a suitable cabinet but this may be their permanent home. I was on my way to pick a wine fridge up last Friday and about half way there the guy called to let me know he dropped it taking it out to his porch for me to pick up and busted the door glass.

I hope your planning on making a video when you get yours going. Part of my idea for using the Pi/Arduino was because I hadn't seen it done yet. Since you did Arduino I will probably go with the Pi.

 

[gpop1]

The further you go the more I realize that I just need to go straight to the Pi. My Temp and humidity displays are hooked to my styro incubator while they wait for a suitable cabinet but this may be their permanent home. I was on my way to pick a wine fridge up last Friday and about half way there the guy called to let me know he dropped it taking it out to his porch for me to pick up and busted the door glass.

I hope your planning on making a video when you get yours going. Part of my idea for using the Pi/Arduino was because I hadn't seen it done yet. Since you did Arduino I will probably go with the Pi.

shame about it being broke. Im really interested to see what can be done with a Pi. I know most of the hardware can be interchanged so sky is the limit. If I was you I would surf the web and places like ebay to see whats made to fit the Pi. Ive had a few false starts like a kid in a candy store. I do wish that I would have gone with blue-tooth or wireless.

 

[gpop1]

incubator is doing a 24hr test run as I don't seem to have much time at the moment..........hurry up the weekend...lol

peltier is/was struggling to make temp and it was really frustrating me as I had already tested that before starting the project. I normally don't quit on something ive started but the spare peltier was lost at sea and I couldn't see the problem. The inside was blowing hot air and the outside was blowing cold air..............that's when I face planted the desk..............its blowing cold air on to the humidity chamber........ The original plan was to test the chamber then liquid foam it when I had finished testing.

So I found a sheet of Styrofoam and boxed in the humidity chamber and pipe work and now the heater is reaching temp.

fixed a few more problems like the unstable temp and added water to test the auto humidity chamber. Yellowherb still has to test the interface panel before I finnish the last of the code which is mainly backing all the setting to memory. The idea is that during a power flicker all of the set points will auto-fill on restart,

 

[gpop1]

hope to get time to make the second cooler into a hatcher and have the main one run all the controls. This will also give me some space so I can hide the computer power supply behind the hatcher. I have a cable and plug so I can join them and I have modified a few things so it should be easy to do.
The biggest problem doing this will be interference between the 120v to 12v power supplies so im just going to use a computer power supply that's rated higher than both units require. (warning plan subject to change...lol what plan im just making this up as im going along)

 

[yellowherb]

Osceola eggs came today, hand turning is getting tiring and I have a multitude of different hatch dates on turkeys, quail and pheasant eggs, now another different hatch date. >.> <,< hope Gpop1 gets done soon....

 

[wynn4578]

I'm kind of curious if you plan on making your controls accessible to yourself locally (through a router or web-based). One of the reasons I want to use the Arduino or the Pi was so I could access my panel from my laptop in my house or maybe even take it a step further and make it web-based so I could access it anywhere. A couple of cheap pin cameras and you've got full access to your incubator from anywhere. Just a though for a future feauture.

 

[gpop1]

I'm kind of curious if you plan on making your controls accessible to yourself locally (through a router or web-based). One of the reasons I want to use the Arduino or the Pi was so I could access my panel from my laptop in my house or maybe even take it a step further and make it web-based so I could access it anywhere. A couple of cheap pin cameras and you've got full access to your incubator from anywhere. Just a though for a future feauture.

I think it can be done and ive seen a lot of projects that work along the same lines but it would require some research to come up with a plan. you may even have to use both the arduino and the Pi as the Pi can deal with a cloud server and also talk to the arduino.