Quick fan placement question...

[SlitherinSisters]

So I know the best place to put the fan is on the top blowing towards the bottom. I can't get mine to stay on top, unless I glue it or something, and it's noisy on the bottom. Is it an absolute necessity that it goes on the top or bottom. I'm also only going to have three clutches this year, possibly four, but that girl is still breeding so who knows. So if I only have three clutches they will all fit on that top shelf just fine. Just looking for opinions, I don't have a problem putting it on the bottom if that would be the best bet.

Sorry it's a cell phone pic (the blue light is the fan)

[snakesRkewl]

I have my fan on the bottom facing to the back and my temps are almost perfect.
i read within 1/2 a degree in any tub.
My fan is a bathroom ceiling fan mounted to wood to stabilize it, plugged into a rheostat to control the speed of the fan.
The fan speed itself actually fine tunes the temperatures top to bottom.

[SlitherinSisters]

Alright, thanks for the pics and info. If yours is on the bottom and can move all that air, mine should work. I'm actually having a little better stabilization in there with it on the side like that. That fan is a little crazy, it seems fast, but you can only feel the air movement with your hand a few inches away from it. I thinking it will be better to have it like I have it, or like you have your fan so it's not blowing directly on any tubs.

I totally revamped my incubator to try and fix whatever problem I had last year. New bator, new flexwatt, new fan, new tubs. I'm going substrateless, but I need to pick up some light diffuser tomorrow.

[snakesRkewl]

I found pushing the air up to the top and breaking the heat "bubble" works great from down below, tinkering with the fan speed evens out any hot spots getting all shelves really close to the the same temp.
If the fan moves too much air it gets hotter on the bottom of the inc than at the top, the rheostat/dimmer is indispensable IMO

If you can get you shelves all about the same temp blowing from the middle then go with it, as long as your shelves are close in temp you'll do fine.

I'm big on substrateless now, wouldn't do it any other way

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

My incubator is set up with 3 fans. Due to it using light bulbs inside PVC. So the hole-punched PVC has 1 fan installed in each end just behind each of the 2 bulbs to push the heat through the PVC tubing which snakes like a figure 8 on the bottom. Then one fan directly in the middle on a speed dimmer to control it.

Depending on the size of the incubator, just one or two computer fans would work great on the bottom in the center.

[Annarose15]

I have one fan in a converted upright freezer (looks about the same size as in your first pic). I had the same issue with trying to find a way to attach it to the top, so I have it zip-tied to the bottom of the first (top) shelf so that none of the walls/top/bottom interfere with the air pulling through. My temps range ~1 deg difference from top to bottom.

[SlitherinSisters]

I have one fan in a converted upright freezer (looks about the same size as in your first pic). I had the same issue with trying to find a way to attach it to the top, so I have it zip-tied to the bottom of the first (top) shelf so that none of the walls/top/bottom interfere with the air pulling through. My temps range ~1 deg difference from top to bottom.

That's a great idea! Thank you for that!

[snakesRkewl]

That fan is a little crazy, it seems fast, but you can only feel the air movement with your hand a few inches away from it.

The reason I had to go to a rheostat/dimmer is because the bathroom ceiling fan easily blows as much air as 20 computer fans, lol.
It was literally blowing all of the heat down to the bottom and keeping it there
It was like 5 degrees hotter on the bottom of the inc than it was at the top. (my first test) lol
Dialing the fan down allowed the heat to spread out evenly across the whole inc.