Refrigerator built in fan - good for incubation??

[nahual]

I got a non working ''pepsi'' refrigerator to use it as an incubator. It still has a working evaporator fan that makes a moderated air current. Does anybody knows if is possible to use that built in fan to homogenize the temperature at the incubator??
Thanks!!

[Bill Buchman]

I wouldn't. I have pretty much the same thing you have. Mine is fully functional. I am using a small desk fan I purchased from Lowes. It was only seven dollars and i didn't have to wire it like computer fans that many herpers use. I placed it on the bottom shelf aimed up at the heat tape. Testing revealed less than .5 degree variance between top and bottom. I've got 15 clutches cooking in my small bator. And with 15 clutches due in the next 2 weeks -- I will begin filling that bad boy up! I'll try and get pics posted this weekend.

[muddoc]

Here is my experience. 3 years ago, we got a double sliding door cooler, like the ones seen in a convenince store (it is a miller lite fridge), and I am assuming it is similar to yours. Ours also had the evaporator fans still installed, but not working. In the process of building our incubator, I rewired the fans, and they worked great (I even put a dimmer switch on them so that I could adjust the fan speed. HERE COMES the PROBLEM. I finally fired up the incubator, about a month before we were to get eggs. After 3 days of letting the temperatures stabilize, I couldn't get the temperature to drop below 96 degrees. I kept messing with my Flexwatt, and Helix 1500 watt sytem, and came to the conclusion that I built TOO good of an incubator. At the time, I didn't have a temp gun, so I went and borrowed a friends. It turns out that when I started shooting temperatures, the fan bodies were about 113 degrees. Even with the Flexwatt turned off, I couldn't get the incubator below 95 degrees. I took those fans out, and replaced them with some 5" computer fans, and they problem went away.

So, with all of that said, I would say REMOVE the THING.

Hope that was of some help,

[nahual]

Wow thanks a lot, that is that I need to hear. I never thought that heat from the fan motor could generate that amount of heat. I'm going to remove that fan y install something else. Thanks again!!