THE Brinsea Octagon 20 Eco Thread; Hatches, etc. (PICS)

[immyjay54]

the O20E directions state explicitly that this unit is not at all necessarily factory calibrated. So if you have expected yours to be so, right out of the box, the error has been in fact on your part.
Brinsea says the O20E MUST be set beforehand by the user to get proper temps.

Remember, what you really need is to get the temperature INSIDE the egg, which is NOT the same thing as the air temperature at all. Hovabators with forced air, as well as LG forced air have definite temp. variations even with those fans going. So take note of this.

I do not use an egg turner on any of my three units. I have been using them almost constantly since last October.

I have just moved 40 more into lockdown for hatch on Monday.

I am setting another 48 tomorrow.

And I am very glad to have my bators set for the INTERNAL EGG TEMP. now, and not the mere air temp., WHICH IS NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO LOOK FOR. It is the internal egg temp. that counts. and this is (always) LOWER than what the air temp. is. In order to get correct egg temp., my glass thermometers have to say about 101.5 degrees F.

Remember, the notion of 'getting a "lemon"' is nothing new at all. This will also apply to incubators. One could write a book 1000 pages long about how many new, gorgeous cars have been purchased--all with rave reviews--that have been lemons...............and then there was my 1973 Pinto ('Lemon' anyone!!!!!??) that I had up well over 100,000 miles!!!!

So, one imperfect ANYTHING "doth not the whole shmeer make".

Ya folla?

Here's to another fine hatch

Love this post JMC. Couldn't have said it better myself. lol Seriously, that is why I try to remember to put on my post, "this is what works for me". Just like shipped eggs. I've gotten them from as far west as Calif and as far South as Florida. I'm in PA and I've had excellent hatches on some eggs from Calif and some were terrible. I've had excellent hatches from down south and some were terrible. Just maybe sometimes when we get these shipped eggs, the eggs might not have always been as good as we expect them to be. I've lost an awful lot of money in the past two years on eggs, chicks and juvenile birds BUT, I've learned a lot of costly lessons. Some folks I would never buy from again, some breeds I will never have again but mostly I can honestly say that everyone that I have dealt with were just super honest people. I've hatched a lot of eggs and received a lot of chicks that I could have never gotten in my area. They had to be shipped in. I am just so grateful for what I do have and after the eggs that I have in the incubators now hatch (or don't hatch lol) I will be done for this year. I have everything that I was expecting to get this year and now I can work from my own stock for many years to come. If my own eggs don't hatch then all I can say is, I'm doing something wrong.
I wish you all the best and I'm sure that if you keep up long enough that it will all work out. No one is perfect, we all make mistakes and even the best companies can have faults in their products.
Jim

 

[Squawkbox]

My main question is do I trust the built in thermometer.. if it is reading 99.5 is it actually 99.5 or way off?

Another one, some of you have said that the temp fluctuates when the incubator is tilted.. should I just hand turn instead of tilting the entire machine then?


Jmc,

How am I supposed to measure the temp inside of the egg?
So in your opinion the general rule of incubating at 99.5 in a forced air is wrong then?

the O20E directions state explicitly that this unit is not at all necessarily factory calibrated. So if you have expected yours to be so, right out of the box, the error has been in fact on your part.
Brinsea says the O20E MUST be set beforehand by the user to get proper temps.

Remember, what you really need is to get the temperature INSIDE the egg, which is NOT the same thing as the air temperature at all. Hovabators with forced air, as well as LG forced air have definite temp. variations even with those fans going. So take note of this.

I do not use an egg turner on any of my three units. I have been using them almost constantly since last October.

I have just moved 40 more into lockdown for hatch on Monday.

I am setting another 48 tomorrow.

And I am very glad to have my bators set for the INTERNAL EGG TEMP. now, and not the mere air temp., WHICH IS NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO LOOK FOR. It is the internal egg temp. that counts. and this is (always) LOWER than what the air temp. is. In order to get correct egg temp., my glass thermometers have to say about 101.5 degrees F.

Remember, the notion of 'getting a "lemon"' is nothing new at all. This will also apply to incubators. One could write a book 1000 pages long about how many new, gorgeous cars have been purchased--all with rave reviews--that have been lemons...............and then there was my 1973 Pinto ('Lemon' anyone!!!!!??) that I had up well over 100,000 miles!!!!

So, one imperfect ANYTHING "doth not the whole shmeer make".

Ya folla?

Here's to another fine hatch

 

[Toxic Chicken]

They do sell thermometers that look like eggs (amazon, ebay, incubators wharehouse) and are supposed to give you a close idea of the internal temp of your eggs. They have an alarm too that goes off if temps get out of wack. I don't have one but am thinking about getting one or 2. I have some eggs in lock down now due to hatch Sunday. If the dry incubation didn't go well then I'll start adding water. It's pretty humid right now where I am and a local chicken lady told me she incubates at 20-30% and hatches at 50-60% so that's what I'm trying now. I hope it works out ok. She doesn't have a brinsea so maybe it needs different conditions. I dunno. Still learning this incubator. :/

 

[Toxic Chicken]

4 Ameraucana chicks hatched today. 2 more eggs to go, it's only day 20
so I still have hope for the other two. I'm so happy
I did dry incubation and 70%H in hatcher. Yay Brinsea, got off
to a rough start but I'm happy now.
(these are shipped eggs)

 

[yinepu]

Remember, the notion of 'getting a "lemon"' is nothing new at all. This will also apply to incubators. One could write a book 1000 pages long about how many new, gorgeous cars have been purchased--all with rave reviews--that have been lemons...............and then there was my 1973 Pinto ('Lemon' anyone!!!!!??) that I had up well over 100,000 miles!!!!

So, one imperfect ANYTHING "doth not the whole shmeer make".

Ya folla?

Had I gotten 1 lemon out of 8 bators.. i would have said .. "ok.. so I got a bad bator"... instead of 1 I got 5 "lemons".. yup FIVE out of 8
had I gotten 1 lemon out of 7 turners I wouldn't have been happy... I got 4.. yeah.. FOUR out of 7
I ordered 1 Brooder.. it came with frayed wires... that's a lemon in my book
I ordered the ovascope (high intensity).. it had wires in it that were against UL regulations (the wires were stripped back so far that they were shorting out).. that's also a lemon

when I spoke to customer service they wanted me to spend more money on parts... uhm.. WHY????? When an incubator arrives and dies within a week.. or is dead coming out of the box how is that my responsibility to pay more to fix?.. it's still under warranty.. but customer service really didn't want to talk to me after the first problem I had

when I told customer service that the candler was shorting out they said it was my fault because I didn't buy batteries from them.. funny.. that's the first time I ever heard of using batteries and the batteries jumping inside and removing more insulation from the wires...
They didn't want to talk to me about the frayed wires until I told them it was a fire hazard..

so I suppose the lemons were all my imagination.. or maybe they weren't lemons in your book.. either way I'm done


good luck with your bators guys... and I hope customer service is better for you than they were for me.. I got tired of throwing away good money and sending Brinsea products to the dump since it was just easier to try to fix them ourselves or throw them away than to go around and around with their wonderful customer service department that was only interested in milking us for more money on defective products

.

 

[zekii]

Day 27 for my welsh harlequin hatch, so far 7 live ducklings, looks like one might be dead in egg, a few more eggs in the Brinsea with
pips...
Way to crowded and messy in the incubator, so 12 hours after the 1st one hatched I move the 7 that hatched and cleaned out the shells.
Did this in the bathroom where I had the humidty & heat cranked to the max !!!
Here's a picture of the ducklings just put the in the brooder.

 

[Toxic Chicken]

Day 27 for my welsh harlequin hatch, so far 7 live ducklings, looks like one might be dead in egg, a few more eggs in the Brinsea with
pips...
Way to crowded and messy in the incubator, so 12 hours after the 1st one hatched I move the 7 that hatched and cleaned out the shells.
Did this in the bathroom where I had the humidty & heat cranked to the max !!!
Here's a picture of the ducklings just put the in the brooder.



 

Adorable

 

[kaitnnn1]

no when the light is blinking that means it has reached the desired temp. as stated in the owners manual. when its is not blinking is is heating up.

 

[gabrielle1976]

Oh I am glad I found this thread Im have been pondering diffrent kinds of bators lately this helps specailly as no one seems to answer when I ask about it

 

[zekii]

Temperatures issues with my new Eco20 Advanced, I set the temp in the digital display to 99.5F, but I am only getting 97 to 98F readings
at/below egg level. I am using a Brinsea spot check which is suppose to be the most accurate digital thermometer out there, also verifed with a couple other thermometers. Now I have the Advamce digital display set to 100.6F, and I am finally in the 99F range at egg level.
Anyone else here have this issue with their Eco20 Advanced?