so here's the finished incubator thought
I'd give you a quick rundown okay so the
pictures pride didn't give all the
details but basically what I've got here
is over on this far corner in the top
corner I've got a little 12-volt
computer fan that blows over a light
which is one of those it's a hundred
watt nightlight for like reptiles and
then right next to it I have the water
heater thermostat out on a little peg
facing it which might seem weird but the
purpose for that is that water heater
thermostats they're built to be on just
on the side of a water heater so they're
not very sensitive unless they have
really good contact with a heat source
if you just put on the wall it's
probably not going to work out too well
I had it on the wall initially and it
would swing the temperature by 15
degrees you know wouldn't kick on until
drop to 15 20 degrees so whereas if you
put it right next to life the light bulb
will heat it up extremely quickly and
then when it when it shuts off the fan
will cool it down extremely quickly
which really narrows your range of
temperature down near the eggs which is
what I did now this little thermometer
is a lot more sensitive than the big LED
screen you see in there and basically
what I did is I moved the thermostat as
close as I could or closer and closer
until I got it within a range I liked it
wouldn't vary between 98.7 and 103
degrees so it would kick on at 98.7 and
kick off at 103 or so and then this
other thermometer takes a little longer
to change so it kind of hovers around
ninety nine and a half to one hundred
point five which is perfect for chicken
eggs I'll go ahead and take off little
lid here so you can see a little bit
what it looks like internally and I used
a lot of this one inch foam to lie in
the top and the inside and then I use
the pain of lexan on the inside and a
pan of lexan on the outside so it's like
a dual pane window
there's some ventilation holes cut up in
this corner about six of them and there
you can see the fan light and thermostat
combo right here this is a little
telescope motor that's a tenth of an RPM
so what I do is I have a timer over here
on the floor it's plugged into and it'll
turn it on for five minutes once an hour
and what five minutes we'll take it from
one that moved the tray from one side to
the other so it basically goes over
there sits for an hour goes back sits
for an hour and does that all day and it
moves very very slow it takes that full
five minutes just to turn it and move
the tray over there so it doesn't jostle
the eggs um underneath the grate here
I've got I can put up to four of these
little trays I've got one of them filled
up with water and at the beginning when
I had a lid on it was about fifty four
percent humidity which is just right for
the first 18 days fifty to sixty percent
so and then later on you wanted to raise
it up to about it's about seventy or
eighty percent for the last three days
and you could just fill up more trays to
do that but yeah it's the basic idea as
far as wiring I just took one extension
cord and wired it directly to the motor
that way I can unplug the motor or have
it on the timer and the thermostat won't
toggle it off and then on a separate
wire I go one line to the thermostat the
other line from thermostat to the light
and then from the other term of the
light back into the plug and then of
course the DC 12-volt DC fan has just
hooked up to a 12 volt DC adapter over
there you know one positive negative
nice and easy and that's all there is to
it's pretty simple setup and having this
really overkill 100 watt light helps it
to heat up quick and cool down quick so
if you have a room temperature that's
going to vary a bit like a 20 degree
shift or 15 or 20 degrees ship it won't
affect the internal incubator
temperature but much at all which is
nice that's what my classroom is like so
I want to make sure would handle that
okay
feel free to give me any questions or
shoot me any questions you have and I'd
also love to hear if anybody else has
tried different things that have worked
well to keep improving on a design this
should cost about fifty to sixty dollars
if you don't include this thermometer
and the timer if you just buy the
thermometer humidor humidity gauge combo
I got on Amazon it was like eight bucks
after shipping and all the other parts
and pieces I'll try to put a list at the
end there so you can see the prices but
yeah 50 60 bucks to get even a Styrofoam
version of this that by like Hova Bader
with with the egg Turner and everything
Anna fan you're going to be at 120 plus
dollars and it probably won't be nearly
as stable as this since this is
insulated even better so anyway good
luck with your incubating
you
let's touch on something that I forgot
to mention the video traditional egg
Turner's usually have little cups for
each individual egg to sit in they're
really nice and handy the only issue is
three days before they hatch you're
supposed to take the egg Turner out and
so with that design you have to take the
entire egg Turner out and then
individually put the eggs back in and
just you know takes a little extra time
and I thought might as well Streamlight
it if it if it's not too bad to do so so
what this design I have to do is get rid
of this screw here so I just loosen that
and then you can just tilt this whole
unit and drag the eggs forward slowly
and pretty soon it'll clear the eggs and
you just pull the whole mechanism out
and then put the lid back on takes about
20-30 seconds and you're done
so a little bit simpler process that way
and now they chicks can walk around
freely as well it's not too tough that
way it also makes cleaning out the grade
or adding you know taking out do adding
more of the little Tupperware things
pretty easy too because once you're here
it's pretty easy to just lift that up
and put them in so that's the advantage
to this style egg Turner