Cabinet Styled Styrofoam Incubator?

[brimstone555]

@ punk-a-doodle... Hey Mate! I'm not worried about yer duct tape Cause your design is "Awesome" Keep up the good work with your Temp/Humidity Trials.. I'm dying to put some pics up here too... will have to wait for weekend! Hey I was grabbing all the Foil from Coffee Tins, Milo Tins at work... Really Heavy guage foil or maybe a few of those BBQ trays? First I had NO Foil till I started melting Hole in Roof!!

Anyway I got a mix-up patch of Tin foil Lids with Aluminum Plumbers Tape and even found some scrap house foil insulation.. you'll see it up here on w/end... 11X15X11 now I had to extend Light away from Turner so its now... 11X15X15 sob sob...Not so mini-bator now... Hey one question for you, What's the port covers for your hot air vents? some kind of drain plug??

Cheers and keep working on it... gonna be full of chicks before you know it!

p.s. I'm using a 100watt globe, but can no longer buy in Australia anymore

if you can in US... then you should Stock up for a few years! cya

 

[punk-a-doodle]

Brimstone: Smashing, can't wait to see more photos! Actually went on a coffee lid hunt after seeing your sweet, gilded chamber there. Alas, my workplace is cheap and uses all plastic containers, and my husband is a self-described coffee snob and has reusable whole bean bags. XD And I just hate coffee. Where did you find the scrap foil insulation? Lowe's had some nice bubble foil insulation, but it was a bit pricey.

Dead on with the vent covers. They are metal snap in drains for kitchen sinks, $1 each. I found this incubator while searching to see if anyone had tried making a small side door for easy chick removal (they had):
http://www.flowerpotheaven.com/gardeningtips/2009/06/30/homemade-incubator-take-2/
She used cabinet vents for her vent covers. I really like her incubator! There are also very thick plastic garden and gutter drains that come in various sizes.

That's a great idea, as we're restricting them here. I'll have to stockpile them away...and be known around town as the crazy light bulb hoarder.

 

[brimstone555]

hehe, Punk-a-doodle... umm Lets just say I work in vicinity of Nice Factory Maintenance Workshop with lots of spare goodies Like Foil and Endless supply of duct tape!!

I also found that some bakery products in Supermarket sell in Heavy Foil trays like Crosoins & Danishes etc... You just need to Flatten them out, works good, if you didn't have aluminum tape then more Silicant sparingly! will do the job, but I know that'll be your 2nd batch of hatch, maybe!

That link does show a very nicely designed bator and awhhh so cute little jap quails just like mine will be... well all my parts are ready! it'll be assembled sometime tonight... I can't do video like you on youtube, but yeahhhhhhhh I'm dying to show pics... probably @ 1am aussie time!! haha

I guess Will & Kate's wedding gets a miss!

I also didn't have any plastic tubing so I made a funny reverse chimney of polystyrene... it looks rediculous but still works...

haha, Lightbulb hoarder huh? Well it is good idea because this guy in Australia probably could have used 60watts but wanted 100watts and had to buy from England @ 3 bucks each!! OUCH that hurt "A Lot"

Lets just say I got a few years supplies... catchya here later..

 

[punk-a-doodle]

Haha, that's one way to stock up. If you ever find yourself working in the vicinity of a donut shop, be sure to send me some.

I'm not sure, but I think the girl I'm going to try to buy from for the first round of eggs has button/coturnix crosses. I could be wrong, but should be interesting if they are! (Edit: probably not after looking again and seeing that no one seems to have crossed the two. Some look a bit longish for buttons though.) I don't think there are many things cuter than baby quail, and I hope we are both up to our ears in them soon!

Heehee, incubators are far more important than royalty.

I can't picture the reverse chimney at all, so doubly excited to see pics!

Woohoo, ran a temp trial tonight, and air temp is holding steady at 100 F with a 100 watt. Humidity trial tomorrow. That one will be harder I think.

 

[brimstone555]

"O" "M" "G" ... help!! Finally the moment arrived to put my home made bator together!... Wired up my Water Heater Thermostat and modified (drilled extra vent holes in Bakerlite casing) as instructed on Posts BYC etc...

What happened next? Answer = "F"ailure...

I think it's a good compact design BUT Can't get Stable TEMPS!

Anyone "YES" Someone please give some suggestions about my setup, Why is Thermostat not Stable... Still SWINGs temps like a monkey from a Tree!

Another problem is that if I have to Scrap "Water Heater Thermostate" THEN What Thermostat should I use to Hook up to 240V Power Supply??? I really wanna keep my shiny new toy...

Help me Please! ALL Suggestions will be Appreciated Thanks... Here is my work in progress now "Halted" hopefully not indefinately....

Photo shows not wired up! But it is now...

p.s. fans are twin 40mm 12vdc... is that enough flow?

 

[aprophet]

this might help with the WH t-stat

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=5597662

as for a t-stat that will work with 240 mains I use this one and am quiet satisfied with it ( I use them at work ) to use it with low voltage bulbs you would need to use a relay but that is fairly easy as well if your bulbs use mains power no need for the relay

http://cgproducts.johnsoncontrols.com/MET_PDF/125188.PDF

you may can purchase it on amazon it showed up here as available when I googled it I always forget the model number crs disease

 

[SierraView]

I'm not an expert. You could try a bigger fan and heatsink might help keep your temps more stable. I would also get a Y adapter for your light socket and use 2 smaller watt bulbs. That way if a bulb burns out you have one still working.

 

[ahsworkshop]

I wish i could help you dealing with what u called 'water heater thermosat' but what can i say? I never touch that kind of stuff. With an electronic thermostat, you can even determine your fluctuation limit between 0.1 - 0.5 degree Celsius or any values you want. It's called hysteresis, simply by adjusting a variable resistor.

I'd like to share the schematic of 'cheap to build' electronic thermostat here if you wish. It's an analog system and the cost to build it is approximately US$5. If you're not interested this thermostat version, just simply ignore this reply

Any way, I'm sure you're a kind of guy thats not easy to surrender with such a challenge ... hope you can deal with your problem soon

 

[brimstone555]

@ AHSWorkshop... Yeah sure why not! if you are happy to share your schematic of analog thermostat I'd try to build it... I'm close to giving up on this Water heater... Too much Tweaking and mucking around without Stable results.. Appreciate your help on this

..just try one last trial with fan position, but I'm getting my soldering iron outa cupboard waiting for your cheap effective design...

 

[brimstone555]

p.s. AH.. Hope it's 240v