Stupid incubator question/comment

My probe is about six inches from the fan, there is a high turnover rate so with probe and fan at the bottom blowing across (in my setup) it works great. I have seen people recommend against putting the probe in the egg box (Possibility of driving the heat too hard and overheating), but there are also people who put it in the egg box and still have good results. If there isn't time for you to test different methods then you will have to go with whichever one is giving you the most reliable results.
I would agree with Jerry when he said to put the Hydrofarm on your rack to free up a Herpstat for your incubator, you would be happy that you did in the long run.
I noticed that you have the heat attached to the bottom of the incubator, this might make it harder to get the uniform temp throughout. Anything on the bottom shelf will be right over the heat and it may not distribute as evenly to the top of the incubator. Most of the designs I see have the heat running up and down the side/s or at the back. Generally this would allow the heat to be more evenly distributed by the circulation fan.
Hope this helps.

Okay thanks. I was not sure if I should put the probe inside or outside of the egg box. The wine cooler is VERY small and if I put the heat tape on the sides it would touch the tubs. I put it on the bottom because it was the only place I could put it where it would not touch either of the tubs. Imagine 2 6qt tubs with about 4 inches of height to spare and this is the area of the inside of the incubator I built.

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Originally Posted by Ladybugzcrunch

In an egg box OR not in an egg box?

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not, middle of bator

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Originally Posted by Ladybugzcrunch

Finished, finally! I got my DIY incubator up and running today and need some opinions. It is a small 6 bottle wine cooler converted into a bator. Has a built in fan and glass door. I taped flex watt to the bottom and it holds 2 6 qt sterilite tubs. In the tubs I used moist sand (I looked in every local hardware store and all the perlite/vermiculite has miracle grow in it) with light diffuser on top and an accurite thermometer/hydrometer inside. I have a hydrofarm thermostat plugged in and armed at 89 degrees. Ok now to the point. At first I had the T-stat probe outside the egg tub and the egg box got up to about 96 degrees. Next I put the probe inside the egg box and so far this is what I have - T stat reading 89-89.6, humidity inside the egg box 99%, and temp inside the egg box 90 degrees. SO...... would you lower the T-stat temp, where do most of you keep your T-stat probe, is there any reason why sand would cause an issue, is 99% humidity okay? Any other comments?

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put the probe in the middle of the incubator. don't go by the temp that's on the thermostat. is your egg boxes right above the flex watt? is it that you ran the incubator and the flex watt heated the egg boxes up cause they are close and right above the flex watt? only way I see the boxes getting hotter than the inside of the incubator. you might not need to move your flex watt. can you put something on the shelf that will help sheild the direct heat from the flex watt? also you need to let the incubator get up to temps and then stable out, before taking your readings. good thermostats and I don't want to get into that again, but they have Soft startup, which slowly applies power during initial warmups. you can also do this manually. If you put something thin that will help sheild the direct heat and allow the surrounding heat, heat your egg boxes. and you ran your incubator long enough to get stable temps, you should be close to be where you want to be. if you have a temp gun, check your temps with that. the rest should be setting the thermostat to get the correct temps in the incubator. don't go by the temp on the thermostat.

also be careful in the future on the fan inside the incubator. in my smaller incubator which is about 4 foot high. my fan is 120 v ac and not a dc fan and it makes heat by getting hot in my incubator. so much on a hot summer day, the flex watt won't even come on and the fan will put my temps higher than what I want them at. my thermostat a herpstat nd was high/low level alarms on it. so I have to turn the speed of my fan down and open the door for a few seconds. just something else you might have to watch out for with certain fans. good luck, chilled don