Well, here's my try at a bator from scratch. At first it was a tiny medical foam cooler that was donated by the feed store but hubby came home with one he found out in the shed where he works, MUCH bigger. And it's almost 2 inches thick!
Minimal supplies here, bought a hygrometer for an insane $10 at a feed store but we don't have a walmart or tractor supply for 30 miles one way. Decided to talk to the other feed store about feed and just happened to see an ancient dimmer switch (pole style) in their clearance bin for a whopping $1. Jumped on that.
Here we go:
Dimmer switch, light fixture from a reflector type heat lamp, and the PVC piece to cover the switch
wiring assembled
Drilled holes into the PVC to slide the switch into, just didn't drill enough and couldn't pull it back out
taped the heck out of everything because hubby has a conniption if he sees anything even remotely unsafe about wiring
Tried to install knob but it was a bit too long
So I carved it down a bit and it worked fine
Cooler was big enough for 2 small windows
Duct tape cures all evils
the windows are just plastic donation jars that I've had for the rescue, hacked off the bottoms and unrolled
Carved a hole for the lamp socket
Hardware cloth in place with water dish (mushroom container, we save them, lots of great uses)
No touchy guard over light
Everything in place, the cording will allow me to lift and lower one side of the egg carton for turning
1/4" aquarium tubing that I saved for no real reason, came in handy, it feeds down into the water tray
Other end of the tubing has an oral syringe I use for day old baby kittens, this will deliver the water in measured amounts without having to open the contraption
So far, at full power on a 60 watt bulb we hit 120 in a half hour, now I've got it to about half power and we've stabilized at 102. Will be adding a CPU fan as soon as I can scavenge one but for now it looks like it's working as is. We have a total of 10 1/4" air holes in the contraption as of right now.
Minimal supplies here, bought a hygrometer for an insane $10 at a feed store but we don't have a walmart or tractor supply for 30 miles one way. Decided to talk to the other feed store about feed and just happened to see an ancient dimmer switch (pole style) in their clearance bin for a whopping $1. Jumped on that.
Here we go:
Dimmer switch, light fixture from a reflector type heat lamp, and the PVC piece to cover the switch
wiring assembled
Drilled holes into the PVC to slide the switch into, just didn't drill enough and couldn't pull it back out
Tried to install knob but it was a bit too long
So I carved it down a bit and it worked fine
Cooler was big enough for 2 small windows
Duct tape cures all evils
Carved a hole for the lamp socket
Hardware cloth in place with water dish (mushroom container, we save them, lots of great uses)
No touchy guard over light
Everything in place, the cording will allow me to lift and lower one side of the egg carton for turning
1/4" aquarium tubing that I saved for no real reason, came in handy, it feeds down into the water tray
Other end of the tubing has an oral syringe I use for day old baby kittens, this will deliver the water in measured amounts without having to open the contraption
So far, at full power on a 60 watt bulb we hit 120 in a half hour, now I've got it to about half power and we've stabilized at 102. Will be adding a CPU fan as soon as I can scavenge one but for now it looks like it's working as is. We have a total of 10 1/4" air holes in the contraption as of right now.
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