Building an incubator: Help with wiring...UPDATE: I'm done! :)

[77horses]

I still really need help with my incubator!

Well anyway, I have all the supplies I need for my incubator!

I have a water heater lower thermostat(90*F-150*F), a porcelain light bulb socket, a large PC fan (NOTE: This is NOT a normal PC fan!!!!!!!! Scroll down a few posts for pictures!!!), two homemade egg turners, digital temperature meter with probe and water wiggler, my 100q Igloo ice chest, and non-digital humidity gauge.

Now, I need help with wiring. I'm going to attempt to wire it with my mom's help (she's really good at wiring) tonight or tomorrow.

Does anyone know where I can see good pictures/chart of how to connect the fan to the thermostat and the light? I have no idea if the fan even connects to these or anything.

Thanks!

 

[chayton]

here's a description of how o wite it up

Starting with the power cord, the wire that has the ridges on it is the common wire and the smooth wire is considered the hot wire.

If you want your fan to run all the time you take the two wires from the fan and connect them to the two wires of the power core(it makes no difference on the fan concerning common/hot)

wiring the thermostat/light - (1)the smooth wire from the power cord needs to be cut,
(2)take the cut wire coming fom the plug and connect it to one screw on the thermostat
(3) TAKE A PIECE OF WIRE AND CONNECT IT TO THE OTHER SCREW ON THE THERMOSTAT/ the other end to the lamp socket
(4) finally connect the other screw on the lamp socket and connect it to the power cord wire that has ridges


that should do it

 

[muddstopper]

If you are using a power cord, the wires should be colored white, black, green. The blackwire is the hot or positive wire. White is neutral, and green is common. Before wireing in your fan, is it a 110Volt fan? if not, do not hook any of these wires to your fan or you will fry it on the spot as soon as power is turned on. Most pc fans are 12volts DC. If that is what you have, you will need a 12V power supply to run your fan. A computer power supply or a 12v wallwart will work.

The thermostat and lightbulb are easy. Hook the Blackwire to one side of the thermostat, to the other side, take a cutoff lenght of black wire and hook it to the opposite side of the thermostat and the other end to the light socket. On the opposite side of the light socket, hook a white wire between the socket and the white wire on the power cord. This will complete your circuit. Whenever the temperature drops below the thermostat setting, the light should come on. If you look closely at your thermostat, it may or maynot have a third screw for attaching wires. This screw is normally greenish in color. If your thermostat has the green color screw, this is where you hookup the green colored wire from your power cord. Also, your porcelin light socket may or maynot have this same green colored screw. If so, hook a green wire from the green screw on the thermostat to the green screw on the light socket. If your thermosat or light donot have the green colored screw, you can leave the green wire disconnected, BUT, the green wire is for a common ground and is a safety feature you need to use if you can.

Now for the computer fan. If you have determined it is indeed a 12v fan, you will need a 12v power supply. The power supply should have a black and white wire going to the supply and two other wires, can be different colors, but most likely one black and one black with white stripe, that go to the 12V device. You can hook these wires up to your fan in either direction, if the fan runs backwards, just reverse the wires. The black, white, and green wires will hook directly to your black, white, and green wires on your power cord. If the power supply doesnot have a green wire, dont worry about it, just hook black to black and white to white on the power cord.

If the fan is a 110V fan, it should have a black and white wire, could be red and white. In either case, the white is always neutral and the colored wire is hot. It could also have a green wire, which is again a common ground. In this case, the black wire from your power cord would hook to the black or red wire on the fan, the white wire to the white wire and green wire to green wire.

These wireing instructions do not take into account for any on/off switches in your circuit. If you intend to use switches, you will need two toggel switches to operate each circuit. To install these switches, you will hook the black wire from the powercoard to each toggle switch. From one switch, you will use a black wire to run to your thermostat, instead of the blackwire directly from the power cord, and on the other switch, you would run another black wire to the fan power supply, instead of a blackwire directly from the power cord. This will enable you to turn on and off each circuit without effecting the other circuit. This will keep you from having to unplug your incubator everytime you want to turn it off and on.

If you are still unsure as how to wire this up, dont tryit without asking more questions or getting someone to help that does know. 110v electricity may or may not kill you the first time you get shocked, but it will darn sure hurt.

 

[77horses]

Thanks but I'm still confused about what wires you're talking about...

For one thing, the fan I'm using is not a real PC fan. It's a larger version of a PC fan and it already has a power cord to plug into an outlet on it. It says on it, "HI-TECK SYSTEM. OAK RIDGE" and then it has "50/60 HZ" and "115 VAC" In small letters on the bottom it says, "IMPEDANCE PROTECTED". I have no idea what any of this means. Is 115 VAC the volts or what???
The porcelain light socket (on the bottom) says, "CU AND CU WIRE ONLY", "LEVITON", and "660W-250V". It has a black wire and a white wire connected to the bottom, which are opposite each other.
The water heater (lower) thermostat is just what it is...It goes from 90*-150*F, just like what many people use in incubators.

Here are some pictures to help:
Back/front of porcelain light bulb socket: (notice the white and back wires)

Thermostat: (sorry, bad picture...)

Large-version "PC" fan: (or whatever kind of fan it is...)

Also, do I need the fan to be connected to the thermostat/light? I plan on having it constantly running, and since it plugs into an outlet, couldn't I just have it running separately? Then I could just wire the thermostat and light bulb socket.

Thanks!

 

[77horses]

Help!

Uggghhh It's so hard to do this because every time I look at pictures of how to build a homemade incubator with a water heater lower thermostat, the person is using something like a lamp kit and a normal PC fan! And the fan I have is different.

No one else on here has the supplies that I have, so I have absolutely no idea what to do!

I looke3d at MissPrissy's instructions, since I've heard how helpful they are, but they would only be helpful if I had the same supplies. She is using a normal PC fan and I'm pretty sure the instructions on how to hook that up are different than how I could hook up my fan. Actually, I don't even know if I have to hook up the fan to the thermostat or anything!

Someone please hellpppp!!!!!

 

[mayden]

You need to hook the fan up to a 12volt power adaptor. Some of the people find one of the extra chargers they have laying around that has a 12 volt rating. You will need to cut and splice the wires from the 12 volt charger and hook it to your fan separately. You CAN NOT hook to the fan to the lamp wiring.

 

[77horses]

For example:
Here's a website with a diagram of how to hook a lamp kit to a thermostat:
http://www.freewebs.com/sterlingmeadowshatcheryalaska/Miscellaneous/HOMEMADE INCUBATOR.pdf

But I can't use this because I'm using a porcelain light bulb socket, not a lamp kit.

So can someone please please please explain this to me? Do I NEED to connect the fan to the thermostat or anything????? It already has a power cord with a plug to plug in to an outlet, and I plan on running it constantly. In this case, do I just need to hook up the thermostat and light bulb socket?
This is all I'm asking and someone should know. I would really appreciate it if you took the time to answer this.
Also, if you know of a thread/website/diagram of wiring a water heater lower thermostat to a porcelain light bulb socket, please let me know.
Thanks

 

[77horses]

Quote:
But why would i do that if it already has a power cord??? As I said, it is NOT a NORMAL PC FAN. A normal PC fan has the three little wires, and the reason why you connect those wires to an adapter is so you can plug it into an outlet, am I right? Then WHY would I need to do that to the fan I have, when I can already plug it into an outlet? This is what I'm confused about. AGAIN, my fan is NOT a normal PC fan with all the little wires. It has one SINGLE black power cord that plugs into an outlet, and the power cord has a switch so I can turn it on/off.
Thanks and I hope this explains why I'm so confused about why everyone keeps telling me to cut the cord and put an adapter on it just so I can plug it into an outlet...when I already can do that.


So what I'm thinking right now is that I should plug the fan in an outlet in the wall separately and then hook up the thermostat/light, right? Since the fan doesn't hook up the the thermostat.

 

[PandoraTaylor]

77horses=
Your fan already has a power supply you dont need to wire it to anything else.
Just wire your light to the thermostat.

but I think the fan may be too much, but you can decide that after you get it set up. you will want to run the bator for a few days and check temps and humidity before you set eggs in it anyway.

 

[77horses]

Quote:
THANK YOU!!!!! That's exactly the answer I needed!

OK I will have my dad help me wire everything up and then see how it goes!
Thanks everyone!!!