Incubator woes

My first incubator I too built from a wine refrigerator with a glass door. I placed a 120mm computer fan at the bottom aiming up to keep air moving around. I also use a VE 300 for my thermostat as well as a digital thermometer on the bottom and top shelves to monitor air temp from top to bottom. It worked great for me! Currently we use a large Nature's Spirit incubator. However, we are currently building our first walk in incubator in our facility. Good luck!

I've just been given permission by my wife to convert our storage room (my first snake room) into a walk in incubator. It's probably 6' x 14'. First I have to figure out what to do with everything in it.

I thought I might take my current incubator, once it's reworked some, and use it for the last few days
of incubation, because it has a glass door. Then I'm not opening the big incubator 10 times a day to
run in and look.

Do you ever worry about too much cool air getting in when you open the door?

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Originally Posted by NWReptiles

Hey there Jerry!

I may have to. I've been to your place but only before you moved. I've never been to Jason's, nor have you ever made it over here.

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Yeah not having a car does make getting around kind of difficult :(

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I just added a 6" 12V computer fan. I assume that should not give off too much heat.

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That should help without too much heat.
I found using rheostats/dimmers on the fans helps tremendously getting the temps to be even top to bottom and side to side.

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While I was in there I pulled out a hatchling with the worst kinking so far. A woma... (female I think, but hard to tell with that much kinking, not that it matters, he/she should never be bred) This one may not survive it's first BM, the body is still fused together just before the vent too.

8 hatchlings, in 3 clutches! This is killing me!

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I can only imagine, I had some incubator issues myself and lost a whole clutch of lessers and the pewter het clown too, trusting cheap thermometers...ugh

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At least the queen bee wasn't affected, nor was it's sibling bumble bee. (A smoking hot bumble bee with blushing that I've never seen before) yet 3 of their clutchmates were affected.

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That's great, glad to see it wasn't a total loss!

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I've just been given permission by my wife to convert our storage room (my first snake room) into a walk in incubator. It's probably 6' x 14'. First I have to figure out what to do with everything in it.

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That would be an awesome sized incubator!

I'll have to come over with Jason next time I swing over to his place, maybe this weekend and pick up some feeders from you :gj:

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Originally Posted by coreydelong

CyberPower is the best I've have found. If it's stable enough for a computer, it's good enough for an incubator. Shop around- you can find refurbs that just had the battery replaced. Mine was $149 new at Office Depot. Mine is a CyberPower 1285AVR. The higher the VA rating the better, but you don't need much for an incubator.

One refurb on Amazon for $99 ;)

http://www.amazon.com/Cyberpower-CP1.../dp/B000FBNWM2

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Do you know how long it will run an incubator for, approximately?

At full load (750w) my model will only last ~5 minutes, but an incubator with 4ft of 11" Flexwatt takes only 80w max load. My incubator is only hitting 0-20% load once it's up to temp on my Herpstat 1, so I'd say you'd be good for a few hours at least.

20% of 80w is only 16w assuming you had 4ft of 11" Flexwatt. I only have 2ft of 11" Flexwatt in my little wine chiller, so at 20% load I'm only pulling 8w of power. I'd say that would last a while :D

Hasn't been tested, though? I'm going to grab one, and I'll test it, and see.