heating rope for bators - UPDATE: Back to lightbulb :(

[eggonomist]

If you can weald a soldering iron you can make this in about 10 minutes. i thought it would be more fiddly but after resoldering my headphone connection inside my iPod it was easy. It just looks complicated, you do need to replace the resistors to make the differential temperature much closer but worth it, I'm going to be making another for my next incubator as within 10 minutes I had it set, 4 days later it hadn't moved from the set temperature. I was truly amazed.

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

YIPPEE>...I'm going to Radio Shack this afternoon and see if they have the parts. What they don't have, I'll order.

I just cannot be getting up several times a night to be checking bator temps to keep from boiling my chicks in the shell.

I'm posting my new homemade bator in another thread...take a look!

 

[arlee453]

Today's update.

The heating rope/element on the dimmer is working great! It holds the temp rock steady. Fluctuations have been .2 degrees.

The trick now is getting it adjusted to the right temp. I'm just making microscopic turns of the dimmer every 3-4 hours and am getting really really close now.

I think this heating method is going to work out really well. I have a silky egg due to go in the hatcher next wed, so my goal is to get the temps regulated and steady by early in the week.

 

[eggonomist]

On another note from someone who tested in the dining room for 3 weeks and then moved the incubator to under the stairs and had to start all over again adjusting the dimmer, make sure you are setting up in the location you are going to be keeping it in, also I had the incubator on the floor for setting up (poured concrete foundation with no basement) and in the cupboard where it lives it's on a shelf at eye level. If I were to do it again, I would have spent the weeks/months getting it set up in the cupboard rather than on the cold floor.
oldtimegator...if you have any problems getting the parts let me know I'm thinking about getting my father to bring another kit over when he comes next. The kit I used was from the UK. I'm sure they have the same thing here but I have not seem them, maybe radio shack over there carries more electronic stuff still as most have gotten rid of everything like that.

 

[catfish]

Sense it was asked how you could tell if burns out or quits working. I got an idea.

Wire up a small 10 watt bulb in series to the heat rope.



_________________________bulb___rope___
Power______________________________________|

Then if the rope burns out and quits flowing power you will know cause t he bulb goes out. Don't know for certain it will work, but its an idea.

 

[banter]

This is too cool-I have been using heating cables for starting seedlings for years! same principle!

 

[arlee453]

Well, the bator is at 99.1 in the WW, in the middle of the grid where I place the eggs.... we're getting really close now!

My bators are made of rubbermaid type coolers. I have to say they seem to be more forgiving of environmental changes than the stryofoam ones seem to be from others' trials and tribulations.

When using the lightbulb setup for heat it would hold the temps pretty good...

 

[eggonomist]

Adding a bulb in series would mean if the bulb blew you loose the heating element as well. Then you loose time trying to problem solve. Of course you could always change the bulb first of all and see but personally I would just have a spare heating element ready to swap out if I saw the temperature dropping and leave the problem solving to be done outside of the incubator keeping the hatch safe. As my thermostat has an LED to tell me the status of the heat sorce and it cycles ever few seconds so I would know straight away if there was a problem. As I previously mentioned I lose confidence in MY heating element and I only had one so I reluctantly went to the light bulb (even now I run 2 bulbs, each able to keep the temperature up so if one blows it's not to much of a problem.
If you wanted to keep an eye on the heating elelment with a dimmer switch configuration you could wire in a flip flop relay so if power stopped going through the wire the relay would effectivly switch a light on giving you continued heat taking out the guess work of whats happening. If you see the light on then no power is going to the heating element, but you still have heat while you change the circuit out.
Howerer nothing is infalable, if you had the wire go out adn the relay tripped and blew the bulb, you would have no warning except a low temperature and by then it could be to late.

 

[arlee453]

I've given up on my heating rope. Time was getting short (I need the coolerbator for a hatcher in the next few days) and I was having a heck of a time getting the temps to stabilize.

It was steady as a rock if it was 102 or more, but under 102 it would be all over the place. (in the Water wriggler)

I've rewired the light socket to the dimmer now and am trying that rather than reconnecting the water heater thermostat.

Back to the ole drawing board - still was worth $2 to give it a try... I think in a bigger incubator, or with a very good thermostat it would work OK - just at the low levels I had to run it in my small cooler it didn't work so well.

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

Thanks for the update. I haven't started the thermostat yet as I am on day 19 with one bator and day 5 with the other. I did use a rubbermaid for the second one with a dimmer and it is absoutely rock steady with NO temp swings and no adjusting the dimmer. After this hatch I'm going to take my old styrofoam one apart and get a larger rubbermaid.