High Tech Bators

[kingmt]

I was thinking a rheostat might be a good idea as a primary control & use 2 T stat as backups or better way of putting it is bypasses.

The hot water one would be of little use but if you had one to cut in & bypass the R stat if the temp dropped to low & one to disconnect power if it went to high. This was one of my previous ideas for mine but I didn't have time to find the parts.

If you used one like is use to control the temp of the heat box on a house heater. Problem being is this one is used to bring the temp down though but this type of adjustable T stat. Len as for your thoughts on the O2s control why could you not use a GM O2 sensor for like a 89 Cavalier then write your program to calibrate it & read the resistance of it. If the temp stayed consistent I think it would work.

I know nothing about the programing though so I am stuck with using others sloppy design or paying a huge price to hop that I can get it to do what I need it to do. I found something on eBay not long ago that all of this was done & it was only like $20 -$40 (not much) from China but it only done two eggs. It looked like a Power ranger helmet. I would love to see your design Len (if you are not afraid of Pat. thefts).

I would try to give helpful input. I could only give input on what to demand on the software though because I know very little on language anymore.

I was hoping for more out of the Reptemp 500R.

I wish I had a way of trying one.

I bought one hot water stat & it was junk. It was only $10 but I hate to give $10 for it & it not work. The one in my pictures is the one that stop working. I can take it back but the store I bought it from is 1 hour away & the price of gas is more then the stat

 

[kingmt]

Oh. I forgot to mention that if you put a lot of things like jars of water or rocks which I have both in mine It helps greatly in temp swing. My air temp swing is more then 10^ but I put a thermometer one of the outside inside ones in a 4 oz water bottle & found that the solid object temp swing is only about 3^. I don't know enough about eggs to know if this is to much or not. I am running mine with the temp a little on the high side & have only thrown away one egg so far out of twenty three.

 

[DANNY]

I am trying to understand all this. First the rheostats that i am familiar with just are not sensative enough for an incubator. why would you want to have to fool with putting rocks and jars of water in there when you can get a wafer system for $20. There is nothing wrong with a homemade bator but you need to have the right eqipment in it. You don't put a lawn mower part of a refrigerator and expect it to work right. The thermostat is one of the most important parts to a bator and that's not where you skimp. If i was building a bator i would put an electronic primary and a wafer secondary in it.
Good Luck

 

[walkswithdog]

I mounted the water-heater thermostat on a metal plate in my secondary air flow and I'm getting a water wiggler shift of .7 - 1.1 degree over 24 hours. Acceptable if not optimal.

I was considering the RT 500, if six degrees is the air shift, it may still hold a much smaller water wiggler shift with a good heat sink in place.

It's low enough in price to justify playing with it here.

I'm not going to spend more than that simply because beyond that I can save and buy a Dickey for the cost of the "real" thermostats and hygrometers.

I do like the idea of a control I can link up to the computer but that's a fine tuning I'm just not up to yet.

 

[kingmt]

Quote:
I understand you wanting to stay with what is proven for you & if you are getting a 95% hatch rate & all is going well then I would be slow to change myself. I have never used a wafer but I'm sure there could be better things out there. As far as a lawn mower part on a car I could get it to work. Probably would not be very economic though. I love to tinker & fabricate.

 

[walkswithdog]

While $20 may sound like nothing, jars and rocks are free. That 20 is a jump ahead toward the Dickey that I do want. And my hatch rate is fine as it is, so I'm not up to justifying the extra $.

Every 20 I leave in the chicken jar is another step. So, yeah I work with what's working - without tweaking toward the high end.

I may eventually dink with a design toward "perfect" but right now I have differing goals.

Hatch and sell enough to get the dickey and then play later. Would I love to be able to hook the dickey to the puter? Yep. But one step at a time.

 

[kingmt]

That is what it is all about. You do it because you can. If you can't then you don't. I stopped modifying for now to see if what I have works. I will make some changes in the future after I can research some items. I have heard to the far right how good these Reptemp are & tow the far left how bad they are. I will end up building my own bator though just so I can make it do what I want it to. I think I am going to have to try the Reptemp myself to find out if it works. I'm not against a wafer ether but I would like it to have a better controller. To me the light bulb is the perfect heat element. It is very economic as far as energy used & $0.94 for four with a socket that is only $1.25.If you want it to heat a metal the put some around it. I did but though this was worse though. I might give it another try with the thermostat hooked to it.

 

[walkswithdog]

I've been dinking with flex watt heat tape - also really cheap to use and useful for safe indirect heat. I like it a LOT. If I had throw away money I'd get another few feet of the 11 inch wide and play with it in the fridgebator.

For now I'm using those under cabinet, puck lights and they're working well, got them on sale.

 

[DANNY]

There is nothing wrong with tinkering and experimenting. My only problem is you playing with the life of a bird. A bird born with crooked legs and other deformaties is a terrible thing and does happen a lot with homemade bators using the wrong components. All i can say is take that into consideration and make sure you get a constant a correct temperature for a while before you put eggs in it. As far as $20 goes for a wafer. How much did you pay for the hot water thermostat or what ever you are using?

 

[Dirt Road]

Since the post was originally "High Tech Bators", maybe we ought to be exploring ways to use or acquire improved or "higher" technology, hopefully without having to pay high end prices. While light bulbs as heating elements, and boxes of rocks for temp stabilization are certainly adequate for some applications, they hardly constitute "technology". I absolutely do not mean to denigrate the use of those items , or those who choose to use them. They have been discussed at length in other threads. Please folks can we go back to the OP??

Jim