Incubators
Fridge-bator
Humidity control
Ventilation/Humidity
Carton Hatch
Thermal mass
Still Air
Egg Turner
Coops
Cheap Coop
Automatic Door
I
have a habit of thinking my projects threw till I think I have
everything perfect before I actually start building something. I'm
pretty sure it has something to do with being to lazy to do things
twice if I can help it. 
When
I desided I needed to build a big incubator I had a fridge in mind from
the start. What I couldn't figure out is how to keep the air moveing in
the fridge so that you dont get any thermal layering. In an empty
fridge its not that hard but when you add shelves of eggs you disrupt
any air flow you can get from big fans. The only real fix to to duct
the air from the top to the bottom with a strong fan. Pulling the hot
air from the top an putting it on the bottom effectivly stops thermal
layering. Actually doing that in a standard fridge gets complicated.
The
fix I came up with was a side by side fridge. It has everything you
need in a box for an incubator. Its big enough, its well insulated an
in has two seperate chambers that run top to bottom. Thing of the main
fridge as the incubator an the freezer as the duct work. Finding a ok
looking side by side that does not work took more doing than I
expected. By the time I found one I had over a year of brain storming
in this build.
The
first thing I did was wire an outlet in each side. Then I cut a 3 inch
hole threw from the fridge side to the freezer side right at the very
top. I mounted the factory fridge fan in that hole blowing in to the
freezer. On the bottom just above the bottom drawer I drilled a row of
1 inch holes all the way from the front to the back. That completed the
circulation system. Closing the freezer an you can feal how well the
air is forced from the top to the bottom out the small holes.
Next
was heat. I tryed the guts out of a foam incubator but it failed to get
that large of space up to temp. I then built a thermostat out of an old
home thermostat an a relay. I wired the thermostat up to control
another outlet on the freezer side. For heat I use a hair dryer. I just
plug it in an set it in the freezer. If it ever fails it can be swapped
for a new one in seconds. An there at any department store for about
$10.
For
turning the eggs I got lazy, I used turners for foam bators. I took the
glass out of the shelves an tied wire across them to hold up the
turners so air would flow up threw the shelves an eggs an not around
the shelves. The bottom drawer became the hatching tray.
Ventilation
is just the ice dispenser door propped open . A square 5
gallon bucket fit perfectly in the freezer side to hold water. I used a frog habitat foggier
hooked to a humidistat for humidity control . I filled the shelves in the
doors with jars of water an the extra spaces with blocks all for extra
thermal mass.
After
running it threw the winter out in the weather it has proven to keep
stable temps with the vent full open down to the 30s outside temp. And
with the vent closed it keeps stable in the single digits (the coldest
we see). I have had pretty good hatches even when the vent was closed.
Also it keeps temp pretty well (vents closed) even threw a 6 hour power
outage with weather in the 30s.
