Homemade winecooler incubator

[PAPACABOT]

I started off by going to a pawnshop for a jack hammer, and ended up with a something I thought would make a nice incubator.
I paid 100 for it. I liked the idea of the shelves where I could put the egg turners on that I see at the TSC for 39.00 I already have three Little giants and its a huge pain monitoring every one of them.



So I bought the wine cooler , took it home, checked it out, decided all measurement were good, then I tore it apart and gutted all the cooling stuff out of it. Now I have plenty of room underneath the unit to hold the automatic humidifier I am working on, Tempature I am still working on, havent decided on what i want to use ( Flexwatt , Heating Element or some other source of heat)... But I did purchase these two for controlling the humidity and tempature

Tempature controller
Humidity controller

I should be getting these by the 20th of August.


I bought 2 more egg turners from TSC today to make my total up to 5 turners. I bought some PC 120mm Blue LED fans, and installed those, soldered up the wires and started to build the power supply on the bottom tray where the compressor used to sit.

For the humidity I am going to purchase a repti fogger for frogs and have it controlled by the Humidity controller. It has a ultrasonic peice that will introduce the humidity into the incubator. and shut off when it hits the desired level I set it to.

For the tempature I plan on haveing the temp controller to control the (flexwatt or heating element or other heat source ) I choose later. Still thinking about which to use yet.

I do plan on leaving the fans running all the time to help keep the temp and humidity levels correct.

Today I spent most of the day deciding how to lay everything out and place it in the cabinet. Here are some pics of what I have gotten done so far.













I will post more updates as I continue to get more parts. There is about 1/2 inch between the tops of the eggs to the tray above or to the top part of the cabinet.

 

[Sphinx]

Awesome! I will be watching this closely.

About 7 months ago, I bought a wine fridge for $20, but I haven't gotten any further than that.

 

[quintinp]

Awesome! I will be watching this closely.

About 7 months ago, I bought a wine fridge for $20, but I haven't gotten any further than that.

Awesome. I have done the whole fridge incubator thing, but I tore into the fridge sides SO much, that by the time I was finished with it, it looked extremely tacky. I did manage to hatch some quail eggs in it before I tore it down.

I decided to go with a wood cabinet, and it worked GREAT.

I have a link to it in my Signature.

I will keep up with this thread, and watch your progress.

GOOD LUCK!

 

[quintinp]

I would suggest you use bigger fans.

Maybe 1 (8") fan, or 2 (4") fans placed in different positions.

 

[PAPACABOT]

I thought the 120mm fans are 4 inch ones, at least thats what they look like. I have one at the top and bottom on the back wall. PLus i will have another one under the heating element

 

[quintinp]

I thought the 120mm fans are 4 inch ones, at least thats what they look like. I have one at the top and bottom on the back wall. PLus i will have another one under the heating element

Sorry I didn't clarify. I meant 120 volt (4" desk fans)

Those 12 volt fans may not move enough air for that sized cooler.

You could probably get 1 (8" desk fan too)

 

[PAPACABOT]

oh ok, so it takes alot more air movement in there then what the pc fans will put out. I have 12" long by 3" wide type cylinder fan that will be blowing across the heating element I have, the fan will be moving constantly but the heating element will be only triggered by the temperature controller. to cycle it off and on. I plan to start working on getting the heating part installed later today or as soon as i get some spare time.

 

[PAPACABOT]

Well I have made some slow progress with this, I have the heater in it and wired up Now I have to hook up the controller I just got yesterday to the heating element. I have 12 inch long by 2 inch wide 120 volt cylinder fan that constantly runs behind the heating element. Here are some pics of the progress I have made

This is with the machine on its face showing its underside where the compressor use to be. Which is now the terminal block , with the fan and heating element in


This is inside the unit, showing where the heating element is, and I used Foil tape to cover the insulation , two layers thick, So the insulation wouldnt be exposed. I am working on a small screen to cover the openeing, as with this type of element the fins are live voltage, The rack you see is just tied up, I plan on putting water bottles there to help bring the temps back up quickly once opening the box. I already have a filter peice I am working on for the back side so it wont throw dust from outside air into the bator.





I will post more pics as I get more of it thought out and put together. Lots of fun building this. I plan to make my vent holes near the bottom so that my heat wont escape from the top. this will have three fans running costantly. Just curious if you think the 12v dc fans need to be changed to 110v ones still.

 

[PAPACABOT]

Here is a pic of it up and running, I put the pan in there to see what would happen if i gave the box something that would hold heat. My cycling of the heater slowed down alot. So i replaced that with water bottles on the rack at the bottom. My temps and humidity have been holding nice and steady a 100 degrees with a 1 degree difference to kick on. My humidity has been holding at 40. I have had it up and runnig for about 12 hours already and it seems like it is very steady, It has been cycling the heater about every 4 to 5 min for about 30 to 45 seonds.

The humidity is a little dfferent, I think the big fan is over powering the humiditys low mist output. I have it set up so that I can plug in a device into the controller. I was thinking of using something that would produce a stream of steam with some pressure that wouldnt get pushed back into he hose when the big fan kicks in.

I also have a project box im going to put the controllers into once I get it stable to where I think it will work best.

 

[clay30286]

The fan thing is stalling my project too. I had the opposite encounter with my computer fan. It made me feel like I was riding down the road with the windows down.