incubating problems

[horsewzl]

this might have been posted already but I could not find it so here is my problem can someone please help????
I got homade incubator that is 26 in. deep 25 in. wide and 4ft tall it has three shelves and the eggs are kept on the top and middle shelf with a water heater thermostate on the middle shelf but that does not want to keep the acurate temp it comes on at 92F and then clicks off at 102 but then my bator drops air and wants to stay at 94-96F so I put in a supplement light bulb at the bottom on the oposite side of my red heating bulb I thought it might help keep the heat right and it worked keeping the temp at 98-99.5 but just recently it is not working once again it wants to hold at 95F and humidity is at 30% I got 2 fans to circulate the air one is at the bottom faceing up the other is at the top faceing up and eggs are in the middle and top shelves the pic on the middle self was small but you can click on it to enlarge.

this is the top shelf

this is middle shelf this has the thermostate on it. the top shelf just has the fan

here is the bottom shelf it has a bowl of water and under the bottom shelf is the 2 light bulbs one stays on the other works with the thermostate there is also a fan on the bottom and another bowl of water.

and here is the close up the very bottom

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

I had some great hatches in my homemade incubator that is somewhat like yours, BUT it takes constant fiddling with the hot water heater thermostat and it still either drops low or spikes high. My suggestion is to buy a wafer thermostat and install it. Or even a digital like this one.... http://cgi.ebay.com/Solid-State-The...ultDomain_0?hash=item563a7ce01a#ht_500wt_1182

Also, the hot water heater thermostat should be placed at about the middle shelf where the eggs are and the heat source away from the thermostat.

 

[horsewzl]

I bought a wafer just have not put it in I am trying to upload pics but haveing a slight problem

 

[horsewzl]

finally got the pics to post can anyone else see what I am doing wrong please help

 

[horsewzl]

can I still get eggs to hatch if they are kept at these temps I pull them on day 18 and put then in the hatcher which is a still air and keeps constant temp at 100.5

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

Looks like a great set-up to me! Keep us posted on this thread!! Good luck...

 

[Daidohead]

If the thermostat is mounted to something like an outside wall the wall will have to heat and cool to operate the thermostat( the temp sensor in on the back). That may be why you have such a big air temp swing. I use a w/h thermostat in my homemade and I have a 3/8" air gap behind the thermostat so that it reads air temp instead of wall temp. Before I put spacer blocks in I had a 10 degree temp swing, with it off of the wall a little I have a 2 degree swing. It gets even better if you can set the fan to blow on it.

Hope this helps, Mark

 

[horsewzl]

it is off the back about 1/2 inch and I have the bottom fan blowing on it

 

[Daidohead]

The only other thing I can see that may be messing with you is the heat lamp. It gives off a lot of radiant heat and will warm the surfaces beyond what the air temp is. Have you tried a regular bulb with a heat shield of some sort to stop the radiant heat and focus on just heating air ?