light bulb blowed.. dang it!!!!

[hddave2]

i set 23 eggs on the 2nd jan. in a bigger cooler/bater i made and all was well ..temp stayed between 99-100 degs. went to bed at 11pm last night all was fine , got up at 5am and the light bulb was blowed..temp was 77deg...not sure how long the light was out but i put a new bulb in it morning and it's warming back up so im hopeing this wont hurt the eggs....what do you guys use as emergency heat when the bulbs blow in these homemade bators...this is my second bator and second set of eggs set..1st bator made the same way did great ..i set 9 eggs in it and hatched 4 chicks in it yesterday...

 

[quintinp]

A lot of people use 2 light bulbs, 1 for back up, because it is extremely unlikely that they are going to blow at the same time. Or you could just risk it, (That's what I do.) I don't know what you could do other wise. I don't know how long the incubator was at 77 degrees, but imagine if it had only been 30 minutes, to an hour, even hens have to get up to poop, and eat and drink. Think of how cold the eggs get, when the hen gets up to go poop, eat, or drink, when it is in the middle of winter, but the chicks usually do fine. I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[hddave2]

i thought about putting 2 light bulbs in it when i was making it but i figured it would be harder to control the heat and i was'nt sure how to wire 2 bulbs to the water heater thermastat...right now i got 1 - 100 watt bulb in it and the temp hold pretty close to where it needs to be...i have been tossing around the idea of building a wood cabinet bator but im still learning how to incubate eggs and now im needing to learn what to do when things like this happen...

 

[Orpy Lady]

Oh what a shame, but tempreatures can drop when you have a power cut, I always panic on that one, especiallly when the power cut lasts for 8 hours, but if you do not open the bator and the centre of the egg remains warm all will be okay. Good luck anyway. Sandy

 

[TucsonAZ]

You can get an adaptor to screw in and use two bulbs. In my homemade unit I have two bulbs each with a fan on it on two different sides, one is 11w the other is 7w and it holds temps perfectly fine.

 

[bairo]

If you dont have now....next time try a lot of thermal mass. Mine is lined with 6 inch clay tile and the egg screen sits on top of three bricks. You can also put 4 inches of aquarium gravel in the bottom ( sized and cleaned already for you is why I say aquarium gravel ) All of these are excellent for providing thermal mass. When the power fails or a bulb lows I have a saying...Thermal mass will save your a**

 

[berniezahm]

Lot of good suggestions from all those other BYC members. Just wanted to add two possibilities:
1. Find "rough service" light bulbs to use in your incubator. They are more expensive than regular light bulbs but a lot less likely to blow out. They can be purchase at Home Depot, Lowes, or most hardware stores.
2. Wire two bulbs in series. Two 100 watt bulbs in series won't get real bright like one would on the 110/117 volt power, however they will still produce 100 watts of heat between them. If you don't need that much heat use two bulbs of lesser wattage and you can tailor it to your need. Just use two bulbs of the same wattage so each one is working at half power and they should last longer than most of us will be hatching chicks.
Hope you hatchlings make it.

 

[bairo]

Quote:
Excellant advice!!! I did forget to mention I use a rough service bulb as well. I do have to think back to my electrical knowledge though on the series. What if the bulb between the power and the next bulb blows? I cant remember if when wired in series if the other one goes out also? I think it does...

Although you could run 2 fixtures through a reostat. 2 100 watt bulbs turned down 1/2 way on the reostat. The 100 watt bulb has a thick filament to handle 100 watts. If you send 50 to it...should last a good while. It is the constant cycling of power in an incubator that wrecks havoc on these bulbs I think

 

[berniezahm]

Quote:
Excellant advice!!! I did forget to mention I use a rough service bulb as well. I do have to think back to my electrical knowledge though on the series. What if the bulb between the power and the next bulb blows? I cant remember if when wired in series if the other one goes out also? I think it does...

Although you could run 2 fixtures through a reostat. 2 100 watt bulbs turned down 1/2 way on the reostat. The 100 watt bulb has a thick filament to handle 100 watts. If you send 50 to it...should last a good while. It is the constant cycling of power in an incubator that wrecks havoc on these bulbs I think

You are correct that if one bulb burns out they both would go off when they are wired in series. By wiring them in series they each only get 50 volts, that you mentioned and they could very well last forever at that voltage.The likely hood of a bulb designed to work on 100 volts ever burning out on 50 volts is probably right inbetween none and none what so ever.

 

[TucsonAZ]

Quote:
They make little plug and play rheostats which I think would be a much wiser idea, you could even run a 150w bulb like that. The above idea is really good thinking but twice the bulbs still adds up to twice the chance of failure.

I would run two lower wattage bulbs, I run the 7w and the 11w because they get the job done well, don't heat up too quickly (causing temp swings) nor stay on all the time and if one goes the other will have to work much harder but my temps won't get too low and I of course have time to replace the bad bulb (which I would do both while I was at it).