Thermostat????????

[lilwhispers]

I am working on recycling an old fridge into a bator. What are your suggestions for a thermostat would rather not use a wafer system unless I get alot of rave reveiws. I have ordered two thermostats off of ebay same kind but they wont hold temp in a large styrofoam cooler they are ranging between 107 and 90 without touching them. Here is a pic of what they look like.

Any suggestions?

 

[keaton85]

I'm using the same thing, $10 at lowes or HD.

The reason it's all over the place it because you dont have any mass to soak up the heat and stabilize the heat. I did the same thing and it was from 80-110 till I put a bunch of jars of water in there. Once the water came up to temp the unit stabilized at 99-102 and now with the eggs it's at 99.8 to 100 ish. The more mass the more stable it seems...

 

[ultasol]

Buy a digital system, not wafer based. Wafers are SO last century..

 

[keaton85]

How much do digital systems run?

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

That thermostat will work but you need to set it to turn the heat element on at about 99*F. After that move the thermostat closer to the heat element till it cuts off before the incubator reaches much over 100*F becouse of direct heat off the element. The thermostat will quickly drop back to air temp an kick back on at 99*F again.

So what you are doing is making the thermostat cycle off at a set time frame an not a set temp. You are using only the kick on temp as the temperature control.