Hi Everyone,
I've enjoyed reading about all the homemade incubators many of you have made. So being the mechanical type I am... I thought... "hey, I could build that!". So I decided instead of getting day old chicks to begin my family's adventure into raising a small backyard flock... I would start at the egg! (Cause we all know the egg came before the chicken!) Yes. I would build my own incubator and hatch my own chicks!
So I thought I would share my take on the homemade incubator.
First you got to start with a good box. I wanted a heavy duty styrofoam box... not the 1/4" thick flimsy ones at Walmart (although they can work too). I wanted to recycle so I was looking for used coolers at the thrift shop. I figured I'd end up with an old plastic kind which I would have made work... but I wanted styrofoam since it would be so much easier to cut, put holes in and screw into. I got very lucky. The thrift store had a large, very heavy duty, 1.5" thick styrofoam cooler. It was perfect! Like others, I used a pane of glass out of an old picture frame for my observation window.
I took some experimenting and planning to figuring out how to package all the needed items in there: light, fan, outlet, water tray, area for eggs/chicks, etc. Then I could see how much space of left over for some heat sinks... thermal mass. I sized up a bunch of jars with water, but then remembered I had some paver stones. I tried them out and they fit... so I filled it up. These pavers are directly under the wire shelf where the eggs/chicks reside.
Here's a picture of the wire shelf in place. It fits nicely over top the pavers. The wood dows on either side just give the center some support. I made an angled wire wedge to tilt the egg carton. You can see here one plain plastic egg and one plastic egg that I taped shut with a hole in the top and filled with liquid dish soap with a glass bulb thermometer sticking out. The thermometer originally had the temp marking on the plastic house (seen above pic) so I used a Sharpie and marked the 100 degree point on the glass part so I could remove it from it's plastic and just use the glass part. All I care about is that this thermometer reaches and stays on the black dot! (not very scientific... I know)
Next was the light, fan, thermostat(t-stat) and wiring. Since I needed an always-on power source for the old cell phone charger (transformer) to power my old computer CPU fan, I figured that I could easily use a regular outlet receptacle for power and then tap off of that to wire the t-stat and light. So I put in a regular outlet wired to an old cut cord from some old appliance for power. Into the outlet I plugged a small 4watt night light so I could see in the box even when the main light was off. I also plugged in the cell phone charger. The output from this charger's transformer was only 5volts DC... and even though most computer fans run off of 12volts... I knew it would work fine... even if not at full blast. (And it does). The charger cord had a red and black wire in it. Hooked those to the red and black wires on the fan (not using the yellow ground wire) and we were in business. I originally had the fan positioned down low in the box facing the lamp, but I found it didn't circulate well down there when I would take temp readings around the wire shelf where the eggs lay. So I repositioned the fan... up higher in the box, facing the wire shelf and centered. This created much more uniform temps at all corners of the wire tray. Much better!
From the wiring screws on the side of the outlet I connected the power (black) and common (white) wires I would need for the main light. I ran the common directly to the ceramic light bulb base (silver screw) I bought at Home Depot (< $2). I ran the power/hot wire to one terminal on the t-stat (doesn't matter which one). Then ran a separate wire from the *other* t-stat terminal to the power screw on the ceramic bulb base (gold screw). That's all there was to wiring.
To shield the eggs/chicks from the intense radiant energy coming off the light bulb, I made a sort of chimney shield to surround the bub. But I made sure my t-stat was in direct line-of-sight of the bulb. You can see I have the backside of the hot water heater lower thermostat (~$8 at Home Depot) facing directly at the light bulb... only about 2.5" away. Set the screw adjustment on the t-stat to come on at the desired low temperature... and position the t-stat the needed distance way from the bulb (start at 3-4 inches... then work closer) to get the shortest "light on" amount of time before the t-stat turns the light off... so that while the light is on you get enough heat pumped into the box to get to the desired high temp. If adjusted correctly, you can get a 1 degree +/- temp swing.
So that's my bator! It hold temps very well. For the last day, I've had solid 99.7-100.2 temp swings. I'm very pleased with that.
Next up is dialing in my humidity. It's currently only running the base room humidity levels that it pulls in through the vents which are in the low 30's %. I have a lid sitting on the bottom of the box (can see in above pic) that I plan to fill with water and then see what RH% that yields. I'm hoping it stabilizes out around 50%... otherwise I may experiment with a sponge too. I've still got a couple more days to dial in my box. I'll be setting my first batch of 6 local eggs this Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday!
More to follow.
Cheers!
I've enjoyed reading about all the homemade incubators many of you have made. So being the mechanical type I am... I thought... "hey, I could build that!". So I decided instead of getting day old chicks to begin my family's adventure into raising a small backyard flock... I would start at the egg! (Cause we all know the egg came before the chicken!) Yes. I would build my own incubator and hatch my own chicks!
So I thought I would share my take on the homemade incubator.
First you got to start with a good box. I wanted a heavy duty styrofoam box... not the 1/4" thick flimsy ones at Walmart (although they can work too). I wanted to recycle so I was looking for used coolers at the thrift shop. I figured I'd end up with an old plastic kind which I would have made work... but I wanted styrofoam since it would be so much easier to cut, put holes in and screw into. I got very lucky. The thrift store had a large, very heavy duty, 1.5" thick styrofoam cooler. It was perfect! Like others, I used a pane of glass out of an old picture frame for my observation window.
I took some experimenting and planning to figuring out how to package all the needed items in there: light, fan, outlet, water tray, area for eggs/chicks, etc. Then I could see how much space of left over for some heat sinks... thermal mass. I sized up a bunch of jars with water, but then remembered I had some paver stones. I tried them out and they fit... so I filled it up. These pavers are directly under the wire shelf where the eggs/chicks reside.
Here's a picture of the wire shelf in place. It fits nicely over top the pavers. The wood dows on either side just give the center some support. I made an angled wire wedge to tilt the egg carton. You can see here one plain plastic egg and one plastic egg that I taped shut with a hole in the top and filled with liquid dish soap with a glass bulb thermometer sticking out. The thermometer originally had the temp marking on the plastic house (seen above pic) so I used a Sharpie and marked the 100 degree point on the glass part so I could remove it from it's plastic and just use the glass part. All I care about is that this thermometer reaches and stays on the black dot! (not very scientific... I know)
Next was the light, fan, thermostat(t-stat) and wiring. Since I needed an always-on power source for the old cell phone charger (transformer) to power my old computer CPU fan, I figured that I could easily use a regular outlet receptacle for power and then tap off of that to wire the t-stat and light. So I put in a regular outlet wired to an old cut cord from some old appliance for power. Into the outlet I plugged a small 4watt night light so I could see in the box even when the main light was off. I also plugged in the cell phone charger. The output from this charger's transformer was only 5volts DC... and even though most computer fans run off of 12volts... I knew it would work fine... even if not at full blast. (And it does). The charger cord had a red and black wire in it. Hooked those to the red and black wires on the fan (not using the yellow ground wire) and we were in business. I originally had the fan positioned down low in the box facing the lamp, but I found it didn't circulate well down there when I would take temp readings around the wire shelf where the eggs lay. So I repositioned the fan... up higher in the box, facing the wire shelf and centered. This created much more uniform temps at all corners of the wire tray. Much better!
From the wiring screws on the side of the outlet I connected the power (black) and common (white) wires I would need for the main light. I ran the common directly to the ceramic light bulb base (silver screw) I bought at Home Depot (< $2). I ran the power/hot wire to one terminal on the t-stat (doesn't matter which one). Then ran a separate wire from the *other* t-stat terminal to the power screw on the ceramic bulb base (gold screw). That's all there was to wiring.
To shield the eggs/chicks from the intense radiant energy coming off the light bulb, I made a sort of chimney shield to surround the bub. But I made sure my t-stat was in direct line-of-sight of the bulb. You can see I have the backside of the hot water heater lower thermostat (~$8 at Home Depot) facing directly at the light bulb... only about 2.5" away. Set the screw adjustment on the t-stat to come on at the desired low temperature... and position the t-stat the needed distance way from the bulb (start at 3-4 inches... then work closer) to get the shortest "light on" amount of time before the t-stat turns the light off... so that while the light is on you get enough heat pumped into the box to get to the desired high temp. If adjusted correctly, you can get a 1 degree +/- temp swing.
So that's my bator! It hold temps very well. For the last day, I've had solid 99.7-100.2 temp swings. I'm very pleased with that.
Next up is dialing in my humidity. It's currently only running the base room humidity levels that it pulls in through the vents which are in the low 30's %. I have a lid sitting on the bottom of the box (can see in above pic) that I plan to fill with water and then see what RH% that yields. I'm hoping it stabilizes out around 50%... otherwise I may experiment with a sponge too. I've still got a couple more days to dial in my box. I'll be setting my first batch of 6 local eggs this Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday!
More to follow.
Cheers!
