I need incubator thermostat help

[Celiandy]

I want to turn my old incubator into a hatcher so I'm trying to get it working a little smoother. It has a water heater tstat, I just tried drilling holes in the plastic, I was really excited that that might work, but it didn't seem to change it. I've tried moving the tstat all over, closer to the light, facing in and out. It seems to work best if the tstat is right in front of the fan, facing out, at best a 2.5 degree swing. I'd love some opinions or ideas on possible fixes. Thanks!

 

[peepswiththepoof]

I've read that it needs to be attached to metal in order to work best. Also, within a couple of inches of the light bulb helps.

 

[Celiandy]

Thanks. Attached to metal, like a piece of sheet metal? I'll have to try that.

 

[Celiandy]

I tried attaching it to metal and putting it close to the lightbulbs. It got a bit worse, around 4 degrees. Any other thoughts? Thanks!

 

[peepswiththepoof]

Hmmm, I used a baking tin pan and cut the sides off and used just the bottom of it...like a cheap-o meatloaf pan, and it worked wonders. Hmmm, what else can we make happen for you!?

 

[aprophet]

http://www.cutlersupply.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_24_28&products_id=211

this is the easiest

 

[peepswiththepoof]

Quote:
In one of my homemade incubators, I use a ReptiTemp 500r and in the other I use a water heater thermostat. The water heater thermostat does the job for me personally, but if you want to be extra precise then I highly recommend the ReptiTemp 500r over the wafer thermostat.

 

[Celiandy]

In the new incubator I went with a wafer thermostat. I chose that over the reptitemp because I liked the fact that it is simple and fixable. I was tempted to get the reptitemp because it looks so simple to use. The wafer is working great, I'm still having some trouble with the temp diff from the bottom of the incubator to the top, 1 degree, but I've been coming to terms with it and it's not really the tstats fault. The incubator in the picture is our old incubator that I am hoping to not put anymore money into and keep it for hatching only. I guess 2-3 degrees is ok, I was just hoping that I could fine tune it by rearranging.

I screwed an altoid tin to it, that doesn't seem to help, maybe I need something bigger like the baking pan. I just put some heat sinks in there to see if that might stabilize it a bit.

 

[peepswiththepoof]

I found this for you....https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=26580-thermostat-modification

Hope it helps!

 

[Celiandy]

Thanks. That is actually just what I did in the first place. I was hoping it would magically fix my temp swings but it didn't seem to make a difference.

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