Confused on thermostats.....help

[Timba]

Awesome!!! Will do!!!

 

[jonih]

My homemade incubator had this exact thermostat, but my temps are fluctuating 10 degrees through the heading cycle. Any ideas? My heating source is 2 150 watt bulbs (near top and bottom) in a cabinet that is 4'high x 2' wide x 18" deep. There are several computer fans circulating the air. I selected the bimetal thermostat because of its supposed accuracy and small range of fluctuation, but something isn't right. Ideas?

 

[lazy gardener]

I have that thermostat, and it is mounted directly between 2 40W bulbs, and very close to them. I get less than 2 degrees fluctuation. I think your thermostat is too far from the heat source, and your wattage is too high. Try moving it closer, so the fan blows heat from the bulb onto the thermostat. Play around with the wattage, and you should be ok. How soon do you need to set eggs? Best to have it stabilized for a day or 2 before adding eggs, and when you work on stabilizing it, add some bottles of water equivalent to the weight of the eggs you'll be setting.

 

[Fred's Hens]

These thermostats work best if located within inches of the heat source.

Building an incubator, especially a very unique design, height, width, trays, thermal insulation, etc is so variant from box to box, that lots of tweaking and experimenting is necessary. Do not rush. Keep working until you're satisfied with the results. Don't rush eggs into an experimental box before it's stable. A two degree swing is considered workable. More than that would seem too much, imho.

I would prefer a heat ring over two 150 watt bulbs. See if I can find the Incubator's Warehouse link.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Personally, a 4' high incubator is really tall. Since heat does rise, it is possible to have the air column warm from top to bottom, but extremely difficult to have a 4' high column of air evenly warm. Tall order. Pun intended.

I'd probably divide that tall box, mentally, into two compartments of 2' each and treat them as two incubating zones. I'd probably have a heating element and a thermostat in each zone.

I like these. It may indeed take two of these heating elements for a 4 foot high cabinet though. Each on their own thermostat. Dunno.

http://incubatorwarehouse.com/100-watt-incubator-heater-110v.html

Unlike the big companies with a large lab and research staff, it's just us working things out. Common sense, logic and lots of experimentation.