DIY 12V water heater (+advice/thoughts?)

[ewerbos]

It may be good, just that the battery is out. The charge controller seems like it was behaving very strangely. I took it out for now, will have to manually check the battery.

I can add more polyamide heaters easily enough and stick them to the bottom of the bucket; I was thinking two more for a total of ~55W.

I did take a bucket of the insulated bucket (temperature and humidity sensor is shown in the picture--current 57F & 46%, humidity 16%-71%, temp 30F-75F in past 24 hours). Bucket is completely covered, including lid and bottom, in reflective bubble wrap (for the nipples, I cut holes and then screwed the nipples through them). The fabric cover leaves a little of the bubble wrap exposed around the nipples, which confused the chickens a bit at first, but I think they've caught on. I didn't do anything about the wires, but I did elevate the bucket on two concrete blocks:

 

[jthornton]

If you could insulate around the nipples so only the metal trigger showed I'd bet that would work. In my humble experience with horizontal nipples they froze if exposed, this made me figure out a way to cover the nipples (dropped the horizontal only did the vertical as the chickens were used to them). Once I covered them they stopped freezing. I wonder if you could take some foam and cut holes for the nipples and "wrap" the bottom of the bucket with it then put the cover on.

JT

 

[aart]

I don't think you can actually insulate the HN's like you did your VN's @jthornton .
Insulating the bucket only saves water heating power.
To keep HN pin/spring from freezing the water needs to be warmer which depends on heater capacity.

Then there is the aspect of water remaining on the lip of the HN's,
someone actually 'dries' theirs off at night, sucking up the standing drops of water with a paper towel

I drilled my holes at a slight up angle so HN would tilt down a bit to drain, didn't always really work that well in the thinner walled vessels...but some do hold more water than others.

 

[ewerbos]

After taking out the charge controller it all seems to be working fine--It was 16F this morning, water was totally liquid and chickens were drinking no problem. I'm having to manually switch out the batteries when it is cold though (only about 20lbs, but awkward). I built a frame so the solar panel can be attached to the roof without drilling holes--Now I just need slightly better weather to paint it, then solar is up!

 

[ewerbos]

The weather cooperated enough this morning for me to get the solar panel with bracket up (it should start raining in another hour or so):

 

[jthornton]

Looking real good!

JT