Hello, I have a still air homemade incubator and was wondering what is the purpose of the fan that some install on their incubator. Is it to circulate the air or is it to regulate the temps? I am having trouble keeping a constant temp in my larger one and I am afraid that this will severely affect my hatch rate. I have gone from a goof 99-100 to 105 to 95 sometimes. This is my first hatch so we really would like to improve our incubator if possible. If people have some ideas, I surely would like to hear them. Thanks
The idea of a fan in the incubator is to circulate the air which keeps the temperature equal throughout the incubator (no "hot" or "cold" spots) and to some degree to facilitate the evaporation of the water and thereby stabilize and regulate the humidity. I have 2 little giant styrofoam incubators, both with fans, and one with a turner. My plan is to use the one without the turner as a hatcher the last three days of incubation. One of my incubators (both used) had a bad fan. I replaced it with a computer fan (12 volt) and fashioned a "baffle" from a coffee-can lid. Many folks have used these computer fans in their incubators because they are efficient, easy to install, and much cheaper than purchasing a "factory replacement fan". There are many threads here on BYC that describe how to install one in either a home-made incubator or factory incubators like mine. I believe that a fan AND an automatic turner will produce MUCH BETTER hatching results that a basic "still-air" incubator without these accessories. just my 2 pesos worth, -Junkmanme- P.S. I also installed DIAL KNOBS from an old radio on my temperature adjustment stem. It makes fine adjustments much easier.
