need some help with homemade incubator:) please

[bam23000]

I use a hotwater thermostat thats been modified with three holes drilled in it... so can recover faster I drilled 1/8" holes then redilled them to 1/4 " temp set at 99.5 has stayed mostly at 99.5 has droppd to low of 99.3 high of 99.8 go this link https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=26580-thermostat-modification Note I didn't take the thermostat a part I figured were to drill and drilled the holes This works Good luck Bill

 

[Airilith]

Ok I've never hatched chicken eggs, but I did breed leopard geckos. I made my own incubator, and it worked fantastic. I used a UTH (undertank heater) as my heat source, and hooked it up to a thermostat ($37 reptile thermostat). I threw that into a hardsided cooler and plugged her in. My temperatures were all over the place. So I added two closed mason jars in there, and viola my temperatures never fluctuated more than 1/2 a degree. Another thing to remember is to put it in a room with little or no drafts, and preferably one that doesn' get used much (to keep people from creating drafts entering and leaving the room). Generally speaking a closet in a back room is ideal.

Now for humidity I have no idea how to help. When you hatch leo eggs they are put in rubbermaid containers with damp perlite to prodive the eggs with their proper humidy. I don't think that's feasible with chicken eggs.

Another tip I found handy was to go buy a weather station. It's got an outside temp gauge that you can put in the incubator, and it will send the temp to the station. I'm not going to lie, for my first few hatches I carried my weather station around with me. And it was pretty awesome because it recorded max and min temps so I could make sure that there were no temperature flucuations. I got mien from Lowes for like $20. It was totally worth it. But remember to also add other thermometers in the incubator as back ups.

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
anytime you see the word Rheostat that means that is a dimmer switch it works by raising or lowering the voltage depending on what the rheostat is rated for and the wattage of the heat source they can be dangerous. They also do not work well if the room tempos change any at all.


http://www.google.com/products?clie...esult_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQrQQwAA

I have this model t-stat on several of my incubators once the bator gets warmed up good 1-2 days mine are 1/2"-3/4" plywood this t-stat swings from 99*-100* or 100-101 or whatever I set it for. My humidity pan is kina deep 2 1/2 " it stays full it doubles as a humidity pan and a heat sink. One of the most accurate humidity sensors I have found is depending on how much money you care to spend is either 2% or 3% accurate it averages $250-300 per sensor I have learned to check the accuracy of the sensor and not pay any attention to what a digital display reads once I verify with a known standard what the display is reading I will adjust repair or fix whatever is necessary to make it accurate . If you are looking for a cheap t-stat I am using a hovabator they use this one I am using it as a hatcher so far it seems fairly accurate 98-99.5

http://www.cutlersupply.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_32&products_id=307

good luck