- May 27, 2011
- 4
- 0
- 7
I have been using a water heater thermostat for the past few years in my incubator. By incubator, I mean that I have a 20 gallon fish tank that once a year I wrap in tin foil, cover in a blanket, and fuss over endlessly while hatching some eggs. Last year I had intended to upgrade to a wafer thermostat. The thing is, I live in the middle of nowhere, and despite this being an agricultural community, it seems that nobody incubates eggs anymore! All I could find was a replacement wafer for a thermostat. After looking through a great post by Eggcellent on building a thermostat setup using just the wafer, I was determined to try this myself. He built a bracket for the wafer so that it would push against a button switch as it expanded. Neat! However, another road block appeared--because my community is so small, I could only find push button switches which were NO (normally open) instead of NC (normally closed). Basically, an NO switch is a button you push in order to turn something on. An NC button is one which you push to turn something off. In order for the wafer thermostat to work, it requires an NC button. They are far less common, though, and I could not find one anywhere. I finally gave up on the whole ordeal last year and didn't bother hatching anything.
This year, though, I stumbled upon some duck eggs from a neighbour and decided to just use my water heater thermostat. With the incubator all set up and working as best it could (where I literally taped the water heater thermostat to the top of a mason jar, which I use as a heat sink, so that I could move it closer to the light mm by mm until it would hold temp), I was still fluctuating from between 98 to 102. Now, this isn't the worst temperature swing in the world, BUT... I never trust the water heater thermostat and fuss and adjust all the time. I end up waking up half way through the night just to make sure my eggs aren't roasting in there. Inevitably they are always on the verge and I have to tinker in the dark, haha. Well, today I stumbled upon the push button switches I had picked up last year which were the wrong type (NO). As I was fiddling with them and looking at the replacement wafer, I suddenly had a risky and brilliant idea. You see, in all the time I have used my water heater thermostat, I never bothered to drill holes into it as many people do. I've always had very successful hatches without doing it, so I just hadn't bothered. I was very tempted to drill it today for some reason and see if I could get the temp a little more stable, but of course the eggs are already in there... and it seemed extremely risky to fiddle with the thermostat with the incubator going! Of course, lots of people have had eggs survive power outages of quite a few hours, but if I broke the thermostat I would have to go all the way into town 45 minutes away and get back and setup a new thermostat... it seemed risky, to say the least.
Call me a bad mother hen, but I decided to do it anyway. I heaped my incubator in blankets, pulled out the thermostat, unwired it, and pulled the cover off. As I did so, it suddenly hit me. All this time I have been searching for a push button switch that is normally closed, and it has been right in front of me the entire time! With the cover off, the insides of a thermostat are pretty simple. There is a tiny peg which pushes on the button and thus cuts off the power to the element (a 100 W light bulb in this case). All I needed to do was have the replacement wafer push against that peg instead of the tiny water heater wafer. Well, I pulled out the saw, a drill, and a hot glue gun and set to work. I built a very simple wooden frame, glued the taken-apart water heater thermostat on one side and put the replacement wafer on the other side by putting a screw through the wood and pushing the wafer onto the end of it. All completed in about an hour and a half, the incubator is now coming back up to temp
. Oh, and I guess I replaced the tiny peg with a tooth pick I broke in half so that it was a bit longer.
All in all, I seem to have gotten around the complete lack of wafer thermostats in the prairies. I guess I have upgraded (sort of, haha). The water heater thermostat is still a part of the mix, but now the replacement wafer should lend it some accuracy and dependability. Now to get everything running again... I sure hope the ducklings are alright! They haven't been under temperature for too long, so I think they should be. Regardless, it will definitely result in better hatches for all the future generations.
I will try to post a picture of my incubator/thermostat setup this evening. It's kind of a box of terrors, with wires hanging everywhere, haha.
This year, though, I stumbled upon some duck eggs from a neighbour and decided to just use my water heater thermostat. With the incubator all set up and working as best it could (where I literally taped the water heater thermostat to the top of a mason jar, which I use as a heat sink, so that I could move it closer to the light mm by mm until it would hold temp), I was still fluctuating from between 98 to 102. Now, this isn't the worst temperature swing in the world, BUT... I never trust the water heater thermostat and fuss and adjust all the time. I end up waking up half way through the night just to make sure my eggs aren't roasting in there. Inevitably they are always on the verge and I have to tinker in the dark, haha. Well, today I stumbled upon the push button switches I had picked up last year which were the wrong type (NO). As I was fiddling with them and looking at the replacement wafer, I suddenly had a risky and brilliant idea. You see, in all the time I have used my water heater thermostat, I never bothered to drill holes into it as many people do. I've always had very successful hatches without doing it, so I just hadn't bothered. I was very tempted to drill it today for some reason and see if I could get the temp a little more stable, but of course the eggs are already in there... and it seemed extremely risky to fiddle with the thermostat with the incubator going! Of course, lots of people have had eggs survive power outages of quite a few hours, but if I broke the thermostat I would have to go all the way into town 45 minutes away and get back and setup a new thermostat... it seemed risky, to say the least.
Call me a bad mother hen, but I decided to do it anyway. I heaped my incubator in blankets, pulled out the thermostat, unwired it, and pulled the cover off. As I did so, it suddenly hit me. All this time I have been searching for a push button switch that is normally closed, and it has been right in front of me the entire time! With the cover off, the insides of a thermostat are pretty simple. There is a tiny peg which pushes on the button and thus cuts off the power to the element (a 100 W light bulb in this case). All I needed to do was have the replacement wafer push against that peg instead of the tiny water heater wafer. Well, I pulled out the saw, a drill, and a hot glue gun and set to work. I built a very simple wooden frame, glued the taken-apart water heater thermostat on one side and put the replacement wafer on the other side by putting a screw through the wood and pushing the wafer onto the end of it. All completed in about an hour and a half, the incubator is now coming back up to temp
. Oh, and I guess I replaced the tiny peg with a tooth pick I broke in half so that it was a bit longer.All in all, I seem to have gotten around the complete lack of wafer thermostats in the prairies. I guess I have upgraded (sort of, haha). The water heater thermostat is still a part of the mix, but now the replacement wafer should lend it some accuracy and dependability. Now to get everything running again... I sure hope the ducklings are alright! They haven't been under temperature for too long, so I think they should be. Regardless, it will definitely result in better hatches for all the future generations
. I will try to post a picture of my incubator/thermostat setup this evening. It's kind of a box of terrors, with wires hanging everywhere, haha.
