MY 'BATOR! Updated PICS Pg 1 & 4 ~ PIC HEAVY!!

[cjeanean]

Okay, guys....I followed a suggestion and added a metal electrical box to mount the thermosat to. I also put the t-stat at the very bottom of the bator, cause of the whole warm air rising thing. It's been going for about 2 hours now, and the temp flux is 14 degrees. It kicks off at 100/101.5 and doesn't kick back on till about 86. The whole process takes about 10-15 minutes....Is this gonna be a problem??? I still don't have a water wiggler yet, I'm waiting on one of those...I hope it'll be here by tomorrow!

 

[cjeanean]

Okay, well, the hot water heater thermostat plus heat sink was a no go. I talked to my mother in law about possibly rigging a regular wall thermostat to register an extra 15 degrees, bringing its total range to 115 F instead of 90F. She told me this may be possible with a mercury thermostat, and now I have one rigged it with a contactor and a transformer. When I first kicked it on nothing happened. I pushed the contact down on the contactor and the light went on, so the contactor is fine, as well as the transformer. So the problem lies with the thermostat.

A regular wall thermostat requires 5 wires to function properly in sync with a furnace/AC unit, but for my setup I only need heat. As a result I only used the power wire (red) and the heat wire (white) inside the thermostat. I have it all wired up but the t-stat ain't kickin. I held the contact down until the light warmed the bator up to 100, but the thermostat still didn't kick on. I don't know what the deal is, other than I *think* the thermostat might be broken. It was an old used on, so tomorrow I'm gonna make hubby go with me to get a new one from his work. The contactor was also free from hubby's work, and the transformer is borrowed from my MIL. Does anyone have any thoughts on this and what might be wrong??? Here's a basic overview, I have pics but they aren't uploaded yet and I won't post till I figure out if this is gonna work or not....

Lamp circuit:
Brass is wired to side A of contactor, silver is wired to ribbed (neutral) cord wire, and side B of contactor is wired to non-ribbed cord wire. Just like the thermostat except the contactor is in the circuit. This completes lamp circuit.

24V wire (white and red) is run from side contacts on contactor (don't know what they're called, they're little flat pieces of metal that the wire gets clipped to). White wire is wired to W contact on thermostat. Red wire is wired to R contact on thermostat. A second red wire is run from R contact on thermostat to R contact on transformer. A second white wire is run from W contact on thermostat to W contact on transformer. The transformer has been wire to a 120 wall plug and now plugs into the wall.

The extra three wires on the thermostat have been ignored at this point since they aren't needed. Anyone have some opinions about this idea??? Thanks!

P.S. MIL is an HVAC tech....I didn't just ask her opinion for the sheer joy of it...LOL! There IS a method to the madness....I swear....

 

[cjeanean]

Okay, here's the deal. I finally got the thermostat working the way I wanted it to, but I had to change up the plans. I'm pretty sure I covered everything in this post, but if I missed anything or something's unclear just ask. This is what I used:

Mercury wall thermostat (yes, the kind that only registers 90 degrees F)

24V Transformer/fan center from a furnace

AC contactor
top view

side view

other side view

A piece of 24V wire

A wall plug cord from an extension cord

Wire nuts (2)

I hooked the lamp up to the AC contactor the exact same way as the thermostat is hooked up for MissPrissy's bator. There is no positive or negative on the contactor, doesn't matter which side you use. You DO have to make sure you wire them to the terminals that have the little push button thing in the middle. Other than that, just wire it exactly like MissPrissy wired hers.

Okay, the thermostat only registers 90 degrees. There is a little stopper that keeps the temp slider from going past 90 degrees. You can see the little round bump under the electrical tape. Use a razor blade or something to cut that little stopper down so that you can push the temp adjuster past 90 degrees. This makes the adjuster touch the circuit board, so I put a piece of electrical tape on the edge of the circuit board to make sure nothing got shorted out...Don't know if it was necessary, but better safe than sorry when u don't know what you're doing...LOL!

Then, I wired the thermostat to a piece of 24V wire. The white 24V connects to the W on the thermostat, which is Heat, and the red 24V connects to the R on the thermostat, which is power.

THIS IS WHERE THE PICS DROP OFF...
Take the other ends of the red and white 24V wire and hook it to the fan center/transformer. The red goes to the R on the fan center and the white goes to the W on the fan center. At this point you should have the R on the thermostat wired to the R on the fan center, and the W on the thermostat wired to the W on the fan center.

Get another piece of 24V wire.

Connect the Red 24V wire to the C on the fan center, and the white 24V wire to the W on the fan center.

Take the other end of the 24V wire and wire the red to one of the metal wings/whatever they're called on the side of the contactor. Take the other end of the white 24V wire and wire it to the other metal wing thing on the other side of the contactor. Maybe I have a pic....

Now, you need the 120 plug cord from the extension cord. This gets wired POSITIVE to POSITIVE and NEGATIVE to NEGATIVE (ribbed is negative and non-ribbed is positive, and black is positive and white is negative....) and secure with wire nuts.

IMPORTANT: There are some extra wires coming out of the back of the fan center. I don't know if all fan centers have them, but just in case make sure you electrical tape them off so they don't touch each other, and only hook the plug up to the 120 wires that come out of the fan center.
Here's the bundle of extra wires...The black and white wires coming off the side are the 120 wires....

Now, you can plug in both the lamp and the fan center, and the contactor will be tripped by the thermostat which will turn the lamp on and vice versa. Now all u gotta do is adjust the temp slider to register 101 degrees! This has been accurate for me within 5 degrees...the air temp hits 101.5 and the light kicks off, then it hits 95-95 and kicks back on. Water wiggler temp fluctuates by .5 degree, between 99.7 and 99.3.

All of these parts are used in heating and cooling, and although they would be expensive if you bought them new you may be able to contact your local heating and cooling repair shop and see if they have any extra parts lying around that they'd sell for cheap. You need a 24V fan center and an AC contactor. Make sure the thermostat is a mercury thermostat, I don't know how to rig a non-mercury up. Good luck, let me know what you think of my setup!!!

Christina

Here's the wiring diagram: