Temperature fluctuation.

[Brinerjp]

Hello all,

First off thank you all for your help in advance. I am incubating eggs for the first time and am very excited. I want to be as successful as possible. I have been preparing my incubator for the eggs and have done temperature test on it. I am trying to keep it at roughly 100 F. I noticed that when the heating element either goes on of off, there is a couple of degrees in change either direction. For example, when the element kicks on it brings the incubator up to 100 F and kicks off, however, the temperature inside the incubator, according to the thermometer, rises two more degrees (102 F) before it starts to cool. Once it cools to just below 100 F the incubator kicks on, but the temperature will drop to 97.8 before it starts to heat up again. My question is as follows: Since the average temperature is 100 F, will this fluctuation have an impact on hatchability? The temperature is not higher or lower than 100 F for longer than 1 minute.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Hello all,

First off thank you all for your help in advance. I am incubating eggs for the first time and am very excited. I want to be as successful as possible. I have been preparing my incubator for the eggs and have done temperature test on it. I am trying to keep it at roughly 100 F. I noticed that when the heating element either goes on of off, there is a couple of degrees in change either direction. For example, when the element kicks on it brings the incubator up to 100 F and kicks off, however, the temperature inside the incubator, according to the thermometer, rises two more degrees (102 F) before it starts to cool. Once it cools to just below 100 F the incubator kicks on, but the temperature will drop to 97.8 before it starts to heat up again. My question is as follows: Since the average temperature is 100 F, will this fluctuation have an impact on hatchability? The temperature is not higher or lower than 100 F for longer than 1 minute.

No, as long as it's that short of time it shouldn't affect anything as it's the inside of the egg that needs to stay at fairly the same temp and it takes more than a minute for the egg to cool off or heat up in an incubator.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree with Amy, at that rate the inside of the egg won’t change temperature that much. It’s the average temperature that counts, not the peaks and valleys, as long as the time frame is fairly short.

I don’t understand why you are getting such a rapid fluctuation though. Is yours a homemade incubator? Is it a still air or do you have a fan? How much ventilation do you have? A well-insulated incubator should not be cooling off or heating up that fast. I don’t know that you have a problem, probably not, but I’m a little confused.

 

[Brinerjp]

I have a Little Giant 9200 still air. I added a computer fan inside. When the fan is running the thermostat will not turn off even though it has exceeded the set temperature. I figured that this was a flaw of the equipped thermostat, so I decided to make some more modifications. I have replaced the Little Giant thermostat with a temperature controller. My guess is that the heating element, even though it has been switched off, continues to carry a little bit of energy causing it to exceed 100. On the flip side, it takes longer to heat it up again once the temperature has dipped. Any thoughts or suggestions? It is an older incubator that I had when I was a kid.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I have a Little Giant 9200 still air. I added a computer fan inside. When the fan is running the thermostat will not turn off even though it has exceeded the set temperature. I figured that this was a flaw of the equipped thermostat, so I decided to make some more modifications. I have replaced the Little Giant thermostat with a temperature controller. My guess is that the heating element, even though it has been switched off, continues to carry a little bit of energy causing it to exceed 100. On the flip side, it takes longer to heat it up again once the temperature has dipped. Any thoughts or suggestions? It is an older incubator that I had when I was a kid.

Are you using an automatic turner?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I have a Little Giant 9200 still air. I added a computer fan inside. When the fan is running the thermostat will not turn off even though it has exceeded the set temperature. I figured that this was a flaw of the equipped thermostat, so I decided to make some more modifications. I have replaced the Little Giant thermostat with a temperature controller. My guess is that the heating element, even though it has been switched off, continues to carry a little bit of energy causing it to exceed 100. On the flip side, it takes longer to heat it up again once the temperature has dipped. Any thoughts or suggestions? It is an older incubator that I had when I was a kid.

The 9200 was not made with a thermostat, it was a basic no digital control. I use the 9200, with the fan kit installed, but no thermostat, no digital control.

 

[Brinerjp]

No automatic turner at the moment. With the original temperature control that came with it, when running the fan, would never signal to shut off. Didn't matter if I had the fan running from the start, or if I turned it on after the incubator had reached 99.5 F. It would just stay on. When not running the fan I can get it to hover right around 99.5 F. That is why I switched to this other temperature controller so that I could have the benefit of the circulating air.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

No automatic turner at the moment. With the original temperature control that came with it, when running the fan, would never signal to shut off. Didn't matter if I had the fan running from the start, or if I turned it on after the incubator had reached 99.5 F. It would just stay on. When not running the fan I can get it to hover right around 99.5 F. That is why I switched to this other temperature controller so that I could have the benefit of the circulating air.

Gotchya. No turner. There goes my theory. It still has the old heating element that runs around the top perimeter of the bator?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Was the fan maybe blowing directly on the thermostat or somehow channeling a breeze over it, especially cooler air from outside the incubator?

How close is the thermostat to the heating element? And relative to heating element and thermostat, where are you taking the temperature? Hopefully not that close to the heating element. Usually if the heating element and thermostat are closer together it cycles faster and you don’t have big temperature swings. From reading your original post I imagine it to be cycling pretty fast now but maybe I’m misreading it.

Amy, you are familiar with that specific incubator, I’m not. Doesn’t that seem awfully fast for it to heat up that much? I’m not used to the heating elements being that strong. Usually they are more gradual. Maybe there is some kind of voltage regulator problem? But then, it cools down a lot faster than I’d expect too.

I’ll admit, I don’t know what is going on.

 

[Brinerjp]

Yes, still using the original heating element. The fan's position is identical to where it would be had it been factory installed, just not the factory fan. I had a few successful hatchings using the still air but read that adding a fan would increase my hatch rate. so I added the fan which draws very little air from the outside just the amount that would come in through the hole where the red plug goes.