which cabinet incubator?

[NiteHawk]

I am thinking about the possibility of investing in a cabinet incubator. There are a number of 'Sportsman" incubators around this area and people swear by them.
However I was checking out the Brinsea cabinet incubator, and it has some features that I find very appealing, like a "cool down" feature were you can set it to "cool down" when hatch times comes along and there is a fair amount of heat being generated by the eggs.. The brinsea ad said that there is temperature alarms, if the air temperature gets too hot or too cold in a room and effects the incubator.
I was reading a "Sportsman" advertisement, and it said that the interior surface is coated with melamine.. That got my attention, melamine is the "Plastic" that was added to milk in China ( to up the protein test results), a few years back, and poisoned a bunch of people... I am not sure I want an incubator that is coated in melamine...
Anyways, all you folks that have used either the "sportsman" or Brinsea cabinet incubator, I would like to hear-- what are the pros and cons of each incubator?? which one is better?? Or is there another cabinet incubator that you feel is better than either brinsea or sportsman??
Thanks!

 

[AltonaAcres]

I love Brinseas. Very high quality, great hatch rates. Although slightly more pricey. If I were you I would go with the Brinsea. The plastic coating does sound sketchy................

 

[NiteHawk]

What model do you have? Do you have any problems with temperature spikes or lows? especially after you go in to help a "shrink wrapped chick"?
Or any problems with temperature fluctuations when the humidifier pumps water inside?
With the homemade incubator often have temp spikes or lows when either have the humidifier kick on, or do a "spritz" of the eggs when things are way too dry and cannot get the humidity up. After "spritzing" the eggs it often becomes like a Turkish steam bath with the temperature spiking....am constantly running fans through the vents or have one inside to try and cool things down.. or cracking the door.--exhausting and frustrating, -constantly monitoring it every little bit.. even at night time..

 

[Acre4Me]

So, I don’t have either one. However, I would be inclined to visit their web page and then call with questions. For example, the melamine would catch my attention, and I would wonder why it’s there. FWIW, many cheap human dishes are made of melamine -durable stuff. My guess is that it may be non porous and easy to clean, but I don’t know. Ask them if there is any place to physically see the units.

I’m also a fan of reading negative reviews bc I look for consistency in the comments across web pages on pricey products to see if there is a consistent design issue (for example, so many people love the small incuview 360 however the initial design was problematic bc the chicks could get injured and sliced by the fan blades!! -that design flaw was fixed, as long as you get a newer model). And longer positive reviews give you info on what improvements there are over other cabinet ones, etc.

Good luck with your choice!!

 

[The Moonshiner]

I had a sportsman back in the day and loved it. It was the older model when they were made of redwood so IDK about the melamine.
GQF have been selling sportsman for decades and still sell a ton of them. I can't imagine melamine would be an issue or they would of switched to something else. IDK.
Mine also didn't have any fancy features but IMO it didn't need any. It was easy to set and then mine never had any issues. Plug and play or set it and forget it kinda deal.
Brinsea did look nice and id bet they are great incubators but when I looked at them they weren't just a little bit more. They were 2 1/2 times the price. That was more then enough reason to move on.
There's a Dickey's incubator brand that are a cheaper version knockoff of sportsmans. Not quite as well made but a tad cheaper. Not cheap enough for me to pick it over a sportsman but thats just my opinion.
Not long ago I came across one that comes in multiply sizes made by rite farms and is sold on coops and more.
Don't know much about them but was considering one of them giving the sportsman a run for their money. I honestly can't say because I didn't get too in depth researching them.

 

[NiteHawk]

I was checking out some of the sportsman and they require a separate "hatcher" ( think the 1202 does not), so when put together -the incubator AND the hatcher, the price ends up being alot more than the brinsea which has a hatcher in the bottom... One problem that I have encountered is that here in Canada the Brinsea does not SEEM to have a distributor for the cabinet models, only the small plastic ones on Amazon.. Unless you want to pay a fortune in shipping from the States...

 

[The Moonshiner]

There is a sportsman model with the hatching tray in the bottom just like the brinsea so there is no need to buy a seperate hatcher.
Also last I looked you could buy both and still be under the brinsea price.

 

[NiteHawk]

Howdy-- have been so busy hardly turned the computer on the last little while...
One concern about the sportsman was the melamine coating, have wondered if there might be "off gassing" from the melamine ( which is toxic )when heated during incubation. I know the brinsea uses ionic silver in their coating to combat bacteria... but ever heard of them using melamine..
Also, the inside humidity, water container acting as a heat sink and causing the temperature to get too hot. Have had that happen before when placing a container of water on the inside of a incubator....

 

[The Moonshiner]

Ive never had an issue with a humidity container.
Not sure how it would. Wouldnt it only get as warm as the temp and the temp only get as high as the thermostat was set?

 

[TheBajan]

@The Moonshiner
What did you end up going with? Have you considered a DIY cabinet incubator? We built one back in May and it's been pretty reliable... no bells or whistles but it will hatch up to 123 chicken eggs so I figure we won't outgrow it for a while. Much less expensive than buying one. Of course it doesn't have alarms or cool down features but it does turn the eggs for us and at a glance i can see if I need to increase the humidity by adding water. I don't have to open it to do that either. Anyway, just curious what you ended up deciding to do.