incubator ideas! post your ideas for home made incubators, whether they work or not~

[kellyn]

Quote:


here's a pic of what i did yesterday. doesn't it look good!?

 

[kellyn]

Anyone else look at furniture and think about how it can be turned int an incubator? I have this beautiful pie safe that one minute I am thinking how to alter it, and the next trying to talk myself out of it. It is a very nice cabinet and pretty expensive.

Oh god, THAT'S ALL I DO!!! i see anything even remotely square, and INCUBATOR comes to mind!

it's gotten so bad, that i even do it at school...

 

[justin24]

I agree with quintinp, it would be awesome to see the pictures here! As for your page, which page are you referring to Justin24?

yea my profileits in my pics the quail egg didn't hatch

 

[fried green eggs]

Could you... maybe... post a picture of whre you put your heating elements?

This is my hatcher igloo bator using a heating element from a small crock pot, I used 4 ceramic electric fence insulators to hold it. I purchased the GQF wafer thermostat $20.75, igloo cooler $3.00, I had a old computer for fan, ceramic insulators, bolts, hardware cloth and electric stuff. It works great! Holds very steady temps and no light bulbs to burn out or burst from high humidity. Chicks started hatching on day 20. 5 hatched already and last 3 look good for hatching later today.

 

[3forfree]

F.G.E., any heat issues with the fan blowing the way it does. I would put it on the hardware cloth in front of the heating element. I like your setup with the heating element. didn't think they were that big being from a small crock pot as you state. How many watt element?

 

[kellyn]

Quote:

This is my hatcher igloo bator using a heating element from a small crock pot, I used 4 ceramic electric fence insulators to hold it. I purchased the GQF wafer thermostat $20.75, igloo cooler $3.00, I had a old computer for fan, ceramic insulators, bolts, hardware cloth and electric stuff. It works great! Holds very steady temps and no light bulbs to burn out or burst from high humidity. Chicks started hatching on day 20. 5 hatched already and last 3 look good for hatching later today.

Wow, that actually looks good! So it stays constant throughout?

 

[fried green eggs]

Yes and the small crock pot I took apart had bi-metal themostat I probably could have used but, I already had the GQF ordered for this hatcher bator. It took a bit to get up to temp but then it just stays where I want it. A regular sized crock pot heating element - I'm sure would heat up quicker.

I'm thinking when I'm done with eggs in incubator bator - I am going to resale shop and pick up a large crock pot to replace light bulbs set up in that bator. The light bulbs are working fine but, they turn off and on so much - I think they won't last long. The heating element in a crock pot is designed to hold temps steady for long periods of time. Maybe if I found a large roaster crock pot I could build a cabinet bator too.

 

[fried green eggs]

F.G.E., any heat issues with the fan blowing the way it does. I would put it on the hardware cloth in front of the heating element. I like your setup with the heating element. didn't think they were that big being from a small crock pot as you state. How many watt element?

The small crock pot I used was maybe a 1 quart size? 6"h x 6"w. It was listed as 120 watts. My cooler is medium sized so, I thought it would be good. It takes a bit to get up to temp but, then just stays steady - unless I open the top lid. I can open up the front access door quick and not affect temp much at all. When I placed eggs thru the front access door - it did go down to 95.7 degs but within 10 minutes was back to 99.5 deg. I have a hose with a funnel on top so, I can add hot/warm water to pan under hardware cloth in chick/egg area so humidity can be maintained.
The heating element was between the outer housing and was around the stainless steel pan, held by a spring on the crock pot. So, I kept that shape when I was mounting the element to cooler.

If I had placed the fan facing it on hardware cloth - it would be blowing on the empty space in the middle. By putting the fan on the side it blows directly across the element and towards the thermostat. I placed my thermometer/hygrometer in egg area, plus another thermometer to get thermostat temp set and let it run for a few days just to make sure everything was good before I placed eggs in it.

So far 6 of my 8 ee eggs hatched 12-24 hours early and 1 still has movement at times but hasn't pip yet (day 21). Other egg has been my ? pores egg & hard to candle on day 18.

 

[DroolBubbles]

We made an incubator about a month ago based on what we had seen here and it seems to be going okay. My wife candled the eggs at day 11 and thinks we have 7 good prospects out of 15 eggs. We purchased eggs on ebay that were shipped so I see almost 50% as pretty good. I couldn't figure out how to make a page on the incubator page so it ended up as a comment on the coop page called the "Cheap o Bator". Because I am what some call a raging dork I also have been recently playing with Arduino microcontrollers. If you are not familiar it is a programable processor that can deal with several inputs and outputs. They sell for about $30 at radioshack and are awesome if you fancy excessive technology. Anyway, if we incubate more eggs, we will, then the incubator will be automated except for turning the eggs since that is too much fun. A temp/humidity sensor with .1 degree and 3% accuracy can be bought for $10 and relays are cheap. So if you think programming is fun or at least rewarding you can easily have true +- 1 degree and 5% control over your hatching environment for only $40-50 more then what your incubator was going to cost anyway, negating the need for a thermostat. And if you play with the Arduino when you are not hatching you can write off the $30. With a few controls you can have vents open and close, lights turn on and off, and water exposure all controlled. If you are really serious about documenting data then you could also set it up to document temp and humidity every so often so you can figure out what works best. Just a thought and if we go forward with this dorkiness I will be more then happy to make any programs written freely accessible.

Good luck to every body else out there reinventing the wheel for what ever reason.

 

[kellyn]

We made an incubator about a month ago based on what we had seen here and it seems to be going okay. My wife candled the eggs at day 11 and thinks we have 7 good prospects out of 15 eggs. We purchased eggs on ebay that were shipped so I see almost 50% as pretty good. I couldn't figure out how to make a page on the incubator page so it ended up as a comment on the coop page called the "Cheap o Bator". Because I am what some call a raging dork I also have been recently playing with Arduino microcontrollers. If you are not familiar it is a programable processor that can deal with several inputs and outputs. They sell for about $30 at radioshack and are awesome if you fancy excessive technology. Anyway, if we incubate more eggs, we will, then the incubator will be automated except for turning the eggs since that is too much fun. A temp/humidity sensor with .1 degree and 3% accuracy can be bought for $10 and relays are cheap. So if you think programming is fun or at least rewarding you can easily have true +- 1 degree and 5% control over your hatching environment for only $40-50 more then what your incubator was going to cost anyway, negating the need for a thermostat. And if you play with the Arduino when you are not hatching you can write off the $30. With a few controls you can have vents open and close, lights turn on and off, and water exposure all controlled. If you are really serious about documenting data then you could also set it up to document temp and humidity every so often so you can figure out what works best. Just a thought and if we go forward with this dorkiness I will be more then happy to make any programs written freely accessible.

Good luck to every body else out there reinventing the wheel for what ever reason.

I'm pretty sure, if you added all of that stuff onto your incubator, that it would've come to a minimum of 90 dollars. To me, that's not cheap. You could've bought a regular hovabator that holds 42-50 eggs. Buuut, jus' saying... most of us on here are looking for something cheap(er) to make, because we like building, and we really cannot afford to hit 100-650 dollars into an incubator. I know I can't. I'm an extreme cheapo, because at my age you realize(I realized this like 6 or 8 years ago) by now, that money doesn't grow on trees. You've generally gotta be creative and improvise. Or get a job. I'm not flaming you a bit, your incubator sounds awesome! Could you post a picture? I(and everyone else) would love to see it! I'm just saying, it sounds a bit... pricey? How much did u spend on it? The one I'm working on now cost me a total of... $0 so far. But I'm going to buy a GQF thermostat sooner or later. Also about the funky controllers, i'd probably take out the electricity in my house. And shock the hair of of my head. I've been shocked A LOT before. And it doesn't feel good. I'm sure you've been shocked. A number of times too. aaaaaas, we all have. Did you make/buy an auto turner for yours? I was wondering, because you hadn't uttered a single word about one. Sorry if I offended you. I really wasn't trying to, plus i'd never do that because I find it rude to put down someones design. And keep us updated on you mail-eggs, 'kay? Coz if your incubator manages to get those to hatch, i'd say that's a 100% fertile hatch rate.