Incubator I made today

I put silicone on the threads of the bottles, soldered all wiring and water proofed the electrical connections. The grate resting upon 2 inch piping so there is no weight on the bottles. I looked at all the places it could short out and think I have them covered. But just in case we I put a smoke detector next to the incubator for now...lol

I want to rig up the circulation fan and one other cool thing, and then I will write up how I did it. I took pictures along the way of building it.

Total wattage for heat is less then 60, thus another reason for for the water bottles to help hold the heat in. Even at a low 60 watts it seems not to over work keeping at 85 degrees. I haven’t tested it at higher temps yet.

Did you ever finish the product? Post instructions, I'd love to see how this worked out for you.

Mark,

I have to say that is a pretty cool (or should I cooler ) set up you have there. Nice work.

It has been running fine, so far. Even moved some AFT eggs into it. Changed out the 3-inch wide Flex watt for the 11-inch wide. Put 3 feet fit in fine on the bottom. Been tweaking with and messing with the fan. Tried to mount it with some PVC piping, but it looked to much like a "Frankenstein" project.
The fan I’m using is radio shack 120v stereos equip type, it only likes to run at high speed, and so I have been playing with it with a rheostat to slow it down. I think when all said and done, I am going to hook it up to a timer and let it run at full RPM twice a day for a minute or two. With out the fan, the air is stagnant and the humidity collects on the top. Turning the fan (manually) on twice a day this past week has really help. Fan works fine setting on the bottom blowing air up. Nothing fancy.
Bought a transformer that the unit can plug into and that I can plug into the SUV in case of an extended power outage (Radio shack). It handles 150 Watts and I am using less then half of that.
I have been working on and off (mostly off-lol) on instructions on how I did it on a web page. I will try and get it done by the end of the weekend.

Looks cool. This is what the bottled water is for: If you increase the mass inside the incubator, then the temperaure inside will remain more constant, so there isn't any large fluctuations in temperature, which could harm the eggs.

The water bottles in the bottom of his incubater help with thermal regulation.

Water changes temperature slowly so the idea is to set the water to the desired temp and any minor changes in the surrounding environment will not affect the abient temp inside the incubator.

Its the same reason you use ice packs in a cooler to keep things cold (with the aid of the insulative properties of the cooler of course). The cooler is also an insulater for the warmer water and thus keep your babies from having a panic attack.

Here is the link on how to do it. Cooler incubator
If you see something I missed, let me know.

Very nice set up, Mark. Thanks for sharing.

Pictures of my first hatchlings that went the entire incubation period in the cooler incubator. Its an Albino AFT gecko

good job . trying just a herpstat (proportional) on my hovabator for the time being myself . ill post back here to let anyone interested know how it works