Incubator Ideas Needed for heat

[RichsBallPythons]

Some may know i finally finished the incubator. I added water bottles and egg crate to the bottom which is ontop of a 12x17 piece of flexwatt. And the side of bator has another 12x17 piece of flexwatt. I have the t-stat probe going through plexiglass hanging in the middle of the bator inside along with the thermometer probe taped inside hanging next to the t-stat probe.


My question is does the water bottles slow down the heating up of the bator. I ask cause before i did this i had the head on the sides rather bottom and it heated up to 89 in 2-3 hours. I have this new setup running right now for about 2 hours and its only reached max 86oF. the thermostat has not shut off once in 2 hours at all. Wondering if i shoud put the heating back on the side and back side walls.

Im gonna let it run all night and then do trials of opening it for a min then closing to see how fast itll take again to heat back up.

What do you think i can do.

[RichsBallPythons]

Forgot to add that i have a 80mm fan in there that was on but now that its unplugged the thermometer reads 86.5. So should i keep the fan off since it seems to be cooling it down.

EDIT: I think i found the culprit. The fan Its been off for 15 mins and t-stat reads 87 and acurite reads 86.8 now.

Any ideas on better placement of fan.

[RichsBallPythons]

Its now reading 88.4. Just wondering if this is normal with the water bottle setups. If so i might ditch it or keep it and add another piece of flexwatt to the other side of the bators wall.

[llovelace]

I know the water bottles help to maintain the heat once the desired temp is reached.

[snakecharmer3638]

I have no experience with this, but it would make sense to me that if the water bottles were filled with cold water, it may take longer for the inside air to heat up. Maybe when setting up try filling the bottles with hot water.

[RichsBallPythons]

the water bottles are room temp which is 80oF. which is another culprit i believe is slowing down the heat form rising up throughout the bator. Im gonna leave it all night as see how it runs with new setup.

Heres the temps as of right now. I just put the thermometer on the egg crate 5 mins before taking picture. t-stat is set at 90. and reads 89. heat tape is reading about 101 at the surface from temp gun readings which is normal. The bottle temps i think is whats slowing down the heating up.

[RichsBallPythons]

T-stat finally turned off after almost 3 hours. acurite reads 88.8 t-stat reads 90. bottom by bottles now read 84.3

Should the fan be used at all or just not even worry about it since temps are good. Ill keep you updated how it plays out later tonight.

[snakecharmer3638]

T-stat finally turned off after almost 3 hours. acurite reads 88.8 t-stat reads 90. bottom by bottles now read 84.3

Should the fan be used at all or just not even worry about it since temps are good. Ill keep you updated how it plays out later tonight.

I would think that the fan helps circulate the air and gives you a more even temp throughout the entire area.

[PythonWallace]

The whole point of using water bottles is that they hold their temperature much longer than the air inside the incubator, so it also takes longer to get cooler bottles of water hot. The fan is needed to prevent hot and cold spots, which you will see without a fan. If it takes that long to heat up, and the fan cools it off too much, the problem is that you don't have enough heat being supplied. You have to add more heat tape. I like to use enough to heat an empty incubator up to 90 degrees, with fans running, in under an hour, in a room that is in the low 70s. It will always take longer if it is filled with room temperature water bottles, but it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to get them up to 90. If it's taking longer than that or you can't get it past 88, you need more heat tape.

[RichsBallPythons]

Thanks guys. Its doing better now. but i defenatly need a herpstat cuz the johnson is having too much fluctuations. Temp his 89.5 and when t-stat shurts off itll drop the 86.8 so i dont like that much difference. so when i get the money ill order a herpstat.