Incubator testing (for homemade ones)

[Oxylepy]

Last night I was thinking about testing a cooler incubator. I know a lot of people like to use water bottles and some like to not use them, plus I know air is a pretty good insulator, thus leaving me with 3 different setups to test (incubator, incubator with water in it, and incubator in a larger cooler, with an air buffer between them). From there it would be fairly easy to test the cool side of things by surrounding the incubator with a controlled amount of ice inside of a larger cooler. The hot side would be a lot harder and could require a space heater in a room...

Anyway, it would be cool to do and would give us a better idea of how to build an incubator that reduces the amount of temperature fluctuation the eggs would experience.

[ImBooBy]

Have you tried using rocks at the bottom? I am trying that with my new incubator soon. It will weigh it down a good bit but rocks are natural insulators and work very well. They hold heat for a long time but I will have to see if they are any better then the water bottles I am using now. With water bottles I am able to keep my temps within .5 degrees of 89 all the time. With a cooler, I lined the bottom with 3 feet of heat tape then topped it with water bottles. Wired it to the thermostat and I leave a spacer in between where the eggs go. Elevate the eggs about 6 inches above the water and that works fine for me. Goodluck with your tests.

[snakesRkewl]

Water bottles are where it's at.

Air is not nearly as good as holding the temperature as water is.

I have 24 water bottles in my inc and I can hold the door open for several minutes and not move the thermometer more than 1/2 a degree.

[Oxylepy]

Water bottles are where it's at.

Air is not nearly as good as holding the temperature as water is.

I have 24 water bottles in my inc and I can hold the door open for several minutes and not move the thermometer more than 1/2 a degree.

That's inside, the air is outside the incubator (between the incubator and the outside world). The water keeps heat by storing it and releasing it. The air forms a buffer between the outside world and inside the incubator. We use it in physics and chem for thermodynamic experiments.

Oh these tests wont happen for a while ~_~ lotta supplies, need to get my Herpstat Pro first.