Power Outage Help!!!

[hellafarms]

I recently purchased some eggs and set them in the incubator monday, and last night we had a storm and lost our power from 430pm till 1100pm I quickly covered the bator with blankets to keep it as warm as possibly but the temp dropped to 83 degrees inside bator for about 3 hrs so the question I have is should I start all over again and throw them away or should I just see what happens?

 

[Katy]

Wait and see what happens. I've had power outages longer than that and still had a pretty good hatch.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

They can drop down below 70*F for over 24 hours an still hatch.... My power company with a little help from a winter storm tested that for me.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

I've had good hatches with power outages that have lasted a half a day and longer. Candle on day 10 and 14 and see if they have grown.

 

[muddstopper]

I think my next project will be trying to build a 12v incubator. Those new electric cars use a 12V heater to defrost the windows and warm the inside. I'll have to study on this a little and see what I can comeup with.

 

[Junkmanme]

muddstopper,

As I recall, some of the cars in the 40's and early 50's had "underseat" heaters that were 6 and/or 12 volt. I also think that Volkwagen had something like that in the 60's.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Quote:
Car tail light running threw a old round house thermostat. An a pc fan. Thats how I built my first incubator. Works great too.

 

[cbiblis]

if ya'll are interested in a 12v heat for your bators look up resistance wire on ebay. what you would do is calculate the sq/ft of your bator ( try to keep it as long as possible and down to at least 1 amp) then buy the proper size of wire. then play with the length via a 12v battery and two alligator clips. when you find the right length weave it onto porcelain electric fence isolators in the bator and then hook a 12v deep cell battery to it. then by a little battery maintainer to hook up to the battery and leave it on at all times. if the power goes out you will have about 2-3 days of battery supply. sort of a ups for incubators. Hope this helps. By the way this will save you money due to the fact that it is more efficient then a 120v heater.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
I made one a few years ago from an auxiliary car heater. It was a little 150 watt heater with a fan that was meant to sit on the dash of the car and plug into the cigar lighter jack. I just wired it to a wafer thermostat and put it inside a Coleman cooler.

Something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EVJ24E

 

[muddstopper]

All good ideals altho I would think the taillight bulb would probably kill a good car battery pretty quick, matter of fact any one of these ideals would kill a car battery pretty quick without some sort of chargeing system. Probably the most efficient method would involve some sort of Positive Temperature Control. Lookup PTC heaters. One could use the nichrome wire sized to the correct length, with a power regulator to construct a incubator that would hold a constant temp at a preset voltage. The voltage regualtor would be needed to to prevent spikes in temps due to the charging of the battery system. More amps during chargeing would mean more heat. My guess is a incubator that had a continuously wound nichrome resistance wire throughout the cabinet, (sort of like and electric banket), wouldnt need a fan to circulate heat and would reduce the power consumption required by a fan heater combination. The cabinet would also need to be well insulated, yet still provide for fresh air exchange, Maybe a convection type of air exchange where the cool air is drawn thru the bottom of the cabinet and the hot air vented thru the top. Would probably also need some sort of large surface area water container for humidity control. You wouldnt have the benefit of a fan blowing across the water to raise humidity.. At anyrate, I think one could be built ( and it looks like a few have been built), and ran off some sort of power inverter along with a battery backup for power outages.