temp problems

[blessedchickenmama7]

Mine is small, will probably hold around 18 eggs. Approx. 20 x 12. It's made of an old travel cooler with a glass double paned door. I think that's why I had to go to the lower wattage bulb, because of the smaller area and heavy insulation.

 

[blessedchickenmama7]

Forgot to say that I made a "water wiggler" from 2 plastic bags with water tied together and placed in a plastic sour cream cup. They also act as a heat sink and that seemed to help tremendously to regulate the temps and stop the rapid, huge swings in temps. I still may add a glass jar like trulefty has in his because I think it will help even more.

And trulefty, that turner is great!! I want one.

 

[JCoogle]

I keep two quart mason jars of water and my humidity pan as well to help with the temp. Here are some pics of my incubator and hatcher. I will be making a new incubator because this one was threw together to test my plans.

The last one is what I use as a hatcher.

 

[trulefty]

Jcoogle,

How much temp difference do you get from top to bottom and how do you control it?

 

[JCoogle]

My temp differance is about 3 degrees. In this one I just have the fan pointed in an upward positon. The nest one I build will have dual fans and be a little better insulated to control the over all temp. After all this one was a test. Total cost of this one was about 30 dollars because I had alot of this stuff in junk drawers. The next one will be close to $200 because I am going with 4 little giant egg turners.

 

[aussieheelr]

My thermostat looks just like the one silkyflock posted a pic of. I had a 40 watt bulb, i'll get a 15 and see how that does. I'm using a styrofoam "beer cooler" so it's pretty small, just one of the one time use coolers you can get at a liquor store. I have the thermostat screwed to the side of the cooler at the level the eggs will be at, figured that would be the best place to judge the temp for the little ones.

 

[aussieheelr]

Ok tried a 15 watt and the light couldn't heat past 93f. got a 25 watt today, we'll see how that goes. Couldn't find a 20, so went with the 25.

hopefully I'll get this worked out soon. Would love to start a few on the 15th.

 

[fatboys farm]

aussieheeir, when you mount your thermostat, dont mount it against the sides. it is important for air to get to the back of the thermostat. thermo doesnt have to be at egg height. i had best luck with the themostat close to the heat source and in the middle of the incubater, then put your thermometer close to the eggs. it seems to be more important that the thermostat can read overall temps and adjust from that. if this helped or more questions pm me. my wife made a fake egg from a easter plastic egg with a small bag of water in it and a probe from digital thermometer, we have been happy with it. always use several diffrent thermometers in different ares. hope this was some help.

 

[aussieheelr]

K mounted it under the hardware cloth by hanging it from a zip tie in the middle. so it's closer to the light bulb now. The 25 watt seems to do better. Just working on getting it stablized!

DH is now laughing at me saying "it would have just been easier to buy one... but at least your learning I guess."

 

[JCoogle]

The watage is very important. depending on the size of the incubator the buld size makes heck of a differance. In mine I am runnig two 100 wat bulbs.