Home Built Incubator heating Question ??

[aprophet]

Quote:

 

[Petej]

Quote:

Hmmmm.....

I'm looking to build an incubator out of an old mini-fridge, so the light bulb idea sounds good!

 

[Cold Canadian]

I had seen one that came with some porcelain insulators ? i think that there was a wire or something that wrapped around the insulators ? and that maybe the wire was the heat conductor ?? Anyone ever see one of these or heard of this ?? I'm trying to save a bit of space , thus less to heat and requiring less power etc .

 

[jm93030]

I am trying to do the same thing here and found this information very usefull and easy to follow instructions


you may be interested


http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/incubator.shtml

 

[mldayton]

We used a mini space heater rigged to a thermostat. The chicks are trying to hatch right now!

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
cutler supply has an bator parts section the heater and insulator kit should be listed at their site

 

[muddstopper]

Do a search for nichrome wire. The porclean insulators are nothing more than the white porclean electric fence insulators you can find at your local feed store. A box of 6 or 12 is only a few bucks. When using the nichrome wire, just remember that the longer the wire, the more resistance it has, but when wrapping it around the insulators, if it touches itself, it will loose its resistance values and can over heat. A reading of about 60ohms resistance will result in about 250 watts of heat when used with a 110V electric current. The more resistance or higher the Ohms, the lower the amount of heat. To increase the resistance of the wire, or raise the Ohm reading, you must use a longer piece of wire. Shorter wires have less resistance and a higher heat.

 

[midget_farms]

I just finished building mine today! I'll start another thread for it.

Built it from scratch - literally & tried to buy as little as possible. I've got about $60 in it & it will hatch 80-90 eggs depending on how I set them.

Does have a turner but its not automatic. I had lots of help from here & have been fiddling with it since thanks giving (off & on).

I use 2 60 watt light bulbs & a home thermostat. I can give you clear wireing instructions if you need.

Keep an eye out for my new post - coming in an hour or so - after I upload the pics

 

[thebirdguy]

I used the 11 inch FlexWatt tape.. I put about a foot of it on the ceiling and then my fan blows across it.. The Flexwatt by itself was maintaining at about 95 degrees during the day and 90 at night when our house temp dropped.. so I added the 40 watt light bulb. I have both the tape and the lightbulb wired to a digital thermostat I got on ebay. It seems to be working pretty well. I am setting my first batch of eggs on Wednesday for the Chinese New years hatch.. so we'll see how it goes..

 

[bethinoklahoma]

so both the tape and bulb? How big is the bator?