incubator is ALIVE!

That is absolutely excellent looking! Fake wood be darned but that's a good looking job! I love the viewing door. Did you follow a set of instructions from somewhere or could you post your own as far as how to do that door and other details. I'd love to do one of these for this coming breeding season (our first) but unfortunately I'm about as non-handy as it comes (in other words....use small words, speak slow and gesture a lot....seems to help me lol :rolleye2: )

Best wishes and good vibes on the nice eggs that will soon fill that incubator.

P.S. Is that an old fridge or an old freezer?

Thanks! I took hints from other incubators that I saw and went blindly from there. It's roughly 36x18x18 and was an "office" type fridge. Below are the basic steps. If you have any questions at all just lemme know.




1. Removed all the functioning cooling parts and wiring.

2. Used a saw to cut the viewing door(metal outer shell)

3. Used two sheets of 24x12 plexi. One on the outside with no sealant and one on the inside of the door sealed with clear silicone sealant. This should provide an insulated window. The door was ~2" thick.

4. Used 3' of 11" flexwatt as the heating source and taped to the bottom and back wall.

5. Installed a small computer fan at the top just in front of the flexwatt with a rheostat to circulate air. You will need to space the fan away from the ceiling as it needs a certain amount of space on the "intake" side of the fan to work properly. I used rubber hose indented for auto use, this works well because it does not obstruct the air flow much and creates a vibration damper.

6. Hooked up the flexwatt up to a Helix and the fan to a inline dimmer switch.

7. Now sitting around waiting for eggs while watching my brown hair turn gray.

sounds pretty close to what I got sitting in my closet...
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...002_947388.jpg
gotta give credit to vaughn for building it. Holds 90 degrees on a JC thermostat, have yet to try it on a proportional.

lol...I just bought that same scale! What are you hatching in the deli cup??

Just testing different containers for some leo eggs I'm expecting over the next season. The containers I've got for ball eggs are a whole lot bigger...I'm probably going to have to put deeper shelving in there, but its a work in progress!

Hello,

I am just curious of how your temps run in your incubator. Have you tested it for any length of time? I am mostly curious about how often, and for how long your thermostat turns on when it needs to heat your incubator?

Thanks in advance,

I had it run for almost 2 months straight when I first got it. I set up container with vermiculite moistened correctly and placed both the thermostat and thermometer probe on the surface of the substrate inside the box. With a JC thermostat (on/off type), set at 89 degrees, I got a temperature fluctuation ranging from low 87.8 to high 91.3. Most of the time when I would look at it, it'd be 89.XXsomething. With a proportional thermostat, I'm guess it'll be more consistent than that. Keep in mind, the incubator is in a room that stays at 80 degrees all of the time.

I'll probably end up getting a proportional stat for it soon. The book says 87 is too cool and 91 is too high for ball python eggs, so the on-off stat is not going to cut it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cueball

lol...I just bought that same scale! What are you hatching in the deli cup??

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That scale is ok....except it only reads in even # increments (2,4,6,8) and only goes up to 2500 grams minus whatever container you zero it out with. good for babies, but one of the adult girls I have just throws an error on it. for $28 at walmart, i coulda just kept my $ for a better one. Daggone impulse purchases.....

I don't think that temp range is too bad at all. The desired range is 88 to 90. I don't think that the slight elevation to 91 will do much harm to your eggs. However, if you can get a proportional thermostat, it will definitely give you some tighter numbers, and probably a little piece of mind (which can sometimes be worth alot).


Sincerely,

Yeah, I run a herpstat on my rack and it is MUCH more consistent than the JC stat I had running it before.