Homemade winecooler incubator

[mayberrygirl]

I am in the process of rebuilding. I have all new parts going in. I had a duct mount hygrometer hooked up to an aquarium air pump that was hooked up to an airstone in a tub of water. I had a hole in the side of the bator for it, worked pretty good, but water would collect in the casing for it and I was scared of it shorting out, that's why I have been looking for one of the digital ones. They must be relatively new on eBay, cause 6 months ago there were none. I am going to write up an article as I put the new one together.

The fogger I bought is a 12 LED fogger.

 

[PAPACABOT]

I will also be building a hatcher with two trays, I was looking at the one controller I saw that did both temp and humidity , but i wasnt too sure about that. I really like the idea of two seperate peices for it being easy to set up and wire. Again its another wine cooler but much smaller. and already has two trays inside and it is about the size of a microwave.

 

[mayberrygirl]

I saw the ones that controlled both, but like you thought separate controllers made moe sense. But then I already had the thermostat. The hygrometer I picked out has a temp probe too, but it is just to help control the humidity.

 

[MobyQuail]

nice work, here is mine.

 

[3forfree]

mobyquail, Your video shows 2 thermostats, a wafer and a hot water heater, are both being used? thanks

 

[PAPACABOT]

Time for an update, The incubator i made from a wine cooler has been so solid sitting right at the perfect temp. we've set numerous times and have had really nice hatches out of it. mostly been setting anywhere from 36 to 48 eggs hatching anywhere 30 to 40 almost every time. Our temps have been really solid between 100 to 101. Humidity has been really solid between 45 to 50. The reptifogger has been great for keeping the humidity up. The bottle lasts about 3 to 4 days. The better half ended up deciding to be brave and we loaded it up to the max , 205 eggs total. 100 were set about a week before the other 105 went into it. I now have all 5 egg turners in it and going. They should be ready to start going into the hatcher around thanksgiving. She has had no problems selling the chicks weve been getting from it. 120 of the eggs are salmon favorelles, hamburg, ee, barred rock, rir and a couple of others, The hatcher has been about the same solid as can be, I dont think It could have come out any better.

 

[silkielover5]

I love your incubator!!!! I'm thinking about buying this but I'm soooo lost on how to! I saw this small one on Craigslist. What size fans do I get?

 

[PAPACABOT]

Well ours has changed quite a bit. I now have the incubator warehouse 250 watt heater kit in it and also the humidity pan with sponges and bucket. I now have a worry free incubator it was worth the money as the other temp peice kept loosing its settings and would spike and cause the eggs to cook or it would get totally cold in there for a day or two and show it to be 99 100. So i fixed that problem.

I wanted a big one that could hold lots of eggs cause the wife wants to raise and hatch and sell certain breeds and most people want to purchase quite a few at a time like 20 to 30 chicks so a lg wouldnt do it, but this thing holds 205 eggs and she has a tray a week coming out. You can search facebook for cabots creations. It wasnt hard to convert I just ran the wires like it said to do and plugged it in. the humidity pan and bucket needed longer line to run where i wanted it at. I still have the older thermostat in there just to compare with and the humidity wasnt hooked up yet in that picture. thats why its at 6. but after a week of seeing steady temps I added the humidity pan and water bucket and now it holds steady at 40 to 42. which is alot better than we were getting before.

As far as fans go, I have 3 in there now all three are 4 inch 110v fans and it moves alot of air. I might add one more smaller one at the bottom near the sponges to see if that will bring up the humidity a little more. But i also still have the old spot where there heater was opened with the element in there. I can close that up some to see if it will increase too.

The hatcher I am building next will use the same heater and humidity stuff I have in this one, But I will tee into the water line for the hatcher. No need for me to have 2 buckets to watch.