New incubator...ready for some eggs (almost)

I just built an incubator this weekend and wil be testing for a month or so to make sure all works. Hopefully everything checks out and it'll be ready to hold some eggs! I left the camera at work, so it'll be a day or so for pics. Yeah...I suck! I put it together for about $30 and it looks to hold 18 plastic sandwich boxes. I figure 6-8 eggs per box (108 -144 eggs!). It also matches my decor nicely
Does anyone have other homemade incubators? Post some pics.
I will post pics later!

Ro Hill

That’s awesome Ro, I can’t wait to see some pictures. With your handwork it probably looks great. Now all you need to do is produce that many eggs…

This is my homemade incubator. It’s made of melamine and has a ½” plastic door. It will hold about 200 leo eggs. The thing I love about it is how well it insolates. The power went out a few months ago for about an hour and it only dropped 1 degree!

Here it is...

Here is my home made incubator. I think it will hold about 1,000,000,000 eggs. LOL I really have know idea how many but more than I will ever produce. Or will it.
I would like to see your pics Ro. Cody, I'd like to see yours as well.

Cody is that the one your dad built? He does great work! I built mine on a whim, found some little cheap shelves on clearance and bought them (They were on SALE!) I didn't really have any plans for them. I have a habit of doing stuff like that.

Jeremy, looks good. I almost bought one of those little counter refrigerators like they have at convenience stores. There is a wholesaler here in Atlanta that has tons of them on ebay, I wanted one that didn't work or didn't have the compressor stuff in it. Those things are pretty light weight when you get the refrigerator stuff out of them. If I find one I will be buying it, then I can put my name on it like yours!

I would love to make my own at of melamin and have a glass door but. What is used to heat it? Please soemone explain to me how I would conduct heat and controll it.
Thanks
Xavier

I didn't feel like shelling out more $$$ than I have to. I am using a 6' blue rope light hooked up to an ESU thermostat. I will probably switch to a better thermostat, like a johnson or ranco in december. I am just seeing if the heat rope will handle the ups and downs. I use rope light on my racks with great success. It kills 2 birds with 1 stone...light and heat. I also have 3 digital thermometers in the incubator so I can check the temps at 3 different levels. I had all this crap laying around and I finally found a use for some of it! I will post how my little experiment is going...hopefully it'll work or I'll have to wire in some incandescent light or heat tape.

Ro,
Thanks. Yup that’s the one my dad built. He’s like a live in handyman and I swear he can do pretty much anything.

That will probably be my next incubator, a full size fridge or something similar to Jeremy’s. I’ll have to make room for it and fill it with eggs but at least I’ll have it.

Xavier,
My incubator was made from replacement parts from G.Q.F Manufacturing. I don’t have any blue prints for the incubator but it was a copy of their cabinet incubators. Below is a picture of how it’s heated. You can see a wire zigzags across the hole. That wire is what warms the air as the fan blows air a crossed the wire. On the opposite side I have wafers (similar to the ones on the hovabotors) that act as a rheostat to control the temps. Actually if I had it to do over again I would set it up digitally.

Originally posted by progeckos
Ro,
Thanks. Yup that’s the one my dad built. He’s like a live in handyman and I swear he can do pretty much anything.

That will probably be my next incubator, a full size fridge or something similar to Jeremy’s. I’ll have to make room for it and fill it with eggs but at least I’ll have it.

Xavier,
I don’t have any blue prints for the incubator but it was a copy of their cabinet incubators. Below is a picture of how it’s heated. You can see a wire zigzags across the hole. That wire is what warms the air as the fan blows air a crossed the wire. On the opposite side I have wafers (similar to the ones on the hovabotors) that act as a rheostat to control the temps. Actually if I had it to do over again I would set it up digitally.

Thanks I wonder if I could pull somethign liek that off, maybe buy
the heating eliment and fann at home depot. I was thinking to make a small rack system like incubator. So it have four levels eahc be able to hold 2 1.9 qt rubbermaids and use my hova bator parts on the top level to heat the area. Maybe have small wholes lined in the center or each level to allow air flow. But maybe it wouldn't be enough I'd think it would be hard for it to be a steady temp thru out the whole unit. Is your completely sealed? I take it the fan blows air from outside in and that enough?
Thanks
Xavier

I don’t know if you can get the heating element and fan at Home Depot but you can try. My incubator has 4 holes. Two are on top and the other two are on the left side (fan side). I have a slot behind the fan that that circulates air clock wise. I do have a hole on the side and top open to allow fresh air in.

I do have other pictures on my site that may help you out as well. My facility page.