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Interest in Incubators? LOOK

C

connorrm

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Ok Everyone,
Have a prototype coming along here and I wanted to get everyone's opinion on it. This particular incubator is going to be 30 inches wide, by 24 inches tall, and 20 inches deep. It is built out of 2" thick galvanized steel freezer panels. It has an R factor or insulation factor of around 15. This makes it extreamly cost effective. One 11" x 11" peice of flexwatt would heat this sucker. It also only weighs at the most with everything in it 20 pounds. This is just a shell it still needs shelves, and a door and a thermostat. My question is would any one be interested in these? Literally you could put them outside and they would hold temp easy to about 20 degrees. Also if you lost power it would lose heat a lot less quickly than probably any other incubator out there. I would guess an 8 hour power loss wouldn't devastate your eggs. I have attached some pics (not done like I said) to give everyone the basic idea. If a thermostat of the customers choice was added, with heat and circulating air as well as a magnetically sealed double paned plexi glass door what do you think this incubator would be worth?

The pics you can see are the front and side and back of the 'bator. The front has the piece that sticks out, and is where the hygrometor and thermometor are going to be mounted as well as the thermostat built in so you can adjust and monitor without even opening the door. It would hold shoe boxes, deli cups, and other sized tubs for incubating virtually anything. Plus side is they can be built to your specifications. This stuff is light weight and shipping would be cheap and probably included in the price! I am guessing this particular one would be worth about 500 dollars? I am looking for feed back on this so everyone let me know.
 

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It's just my opinion, but I can't see one of those bringing $500. I'm a DIYer though, so maybe I'm just looking at it from that point of view. The last incubator I made was a 21 cubic foot upright freezer conversion. Not including thermostat it cost $15 and a couple of hours of my time.
The design is good though, and it looks like it would be an excellent unit. If you could make it look a little more commercial and not so, well homemade if you will, then it would get up to the $500 range. At that price though it would have to have a proportional thermostat, you didn't mention what type you'd be installing in it.
 
you can get units that are much larger & possibly much lighter, helix controlled, and very stable even after loss for much cheaper than that. Perhaps you should use some more affordable materials or consider making the price a bit more competitve if you are going to be producing these items for resale. Good luck!

here is one of the units we got from casey at natures sprit.... about the best incubator units I have had the pleasure of using.

inc.JPG
 
I did not realize Casey made such a nice incubator. I decided to get an incubator recently and looked at what was available online, and found one made for laboratory use by Lab-line. Lab incubators are made to really stay within a very small range of temps set, for research and clinical culture purposes.
Given that some lab incubators are available for under $500, I think that one would have to include additional amenities to support a proposed price tag like that.
 
Thanks for your input guys, I figured since I had some left over materials that it might be worth looking into see if anyone wanted one. Ah well looks like that thought came to a screeching halt. The reason why I never bought one of the NS ones is my house is in between a grid with the power company and I frequently get brown outs. So I needed something that would keep the temp. high why these occurred. As far as the less homemade comment that kinda surprises me I thought it looked very commercial, almost too commercial with all the galvy steel. I can make them white too but its more expensive. But I figured with a proportional thermostat and circulating air ,thermometer and hygrometer built in it would be worth that price. I could sell the shell for just 150-200 dollars with the shelves and door.
 
The cheapest ones I saw for sale at the lab companies were $511.00 otherwise many were well above that and some even thousands for small ones. I got a regular stand up refrig for $25.00 and plan to turn it into my incubator. It was pretty easy gutting it and all I have left to do is wire the heat tape and hook up to a thermostat. Only draw back is no see through door.
 
Okay,
I can take the comments (which is why I posted the thread) but what I can't seem to figure out is where I asked everyone to post pictures of the things they can get for free to make incubators. I still would like to hear other comments and I am proud because I think that this is going to be fantastic when its done. I think I should have waited until it was finished first but hindsight is 20/20
 
There you go Ryan. Post deleted.
 
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