large incubator heat source options

[Bristen]

just reached 89F, so 6' of heat tape will do the trick.. just have to figure out where I want to put it and I should be all set for heating it looks...

[Bristen]

Well, it just reached 90F.. 6' of 11" heat tape will be fine for an incubator that's a volume of over 21 cubic feet...

[Jeff_Favelle]

Thanks for the reply Jeff, you're my only friend on here tonight it seems

LOL, bunch of bastages eh?

I use my Helixes in my two no-substrate incubators and I use them in the water itself! I set the aquarium heaters to 89F and I set the Helix to 90F. And my temps don't vary at all. I would say that you could tape the probe to your actual heat tape and then set it to 90F and that would control your temps. Of course the incubator better be insulated very well, other wise it will lose heat faster than the heat tape can give it off (at 90F).

Keep us updated.

[Bristen]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
[...]I use my Helixes in my two no-substrate incubators and I use them in the water itself! I set the aquarium heaters to 89F and I set the Helix to 90F. And my temps don't vary at all. I would say that you could tape the probe to your actual heat tape and then set it to 90F and that would control your temps. Of course the incubator better be insulated very well, other wise it will lose heat faster than the heat tape can give it off (at 90F).

Keep us updated.

hmmm.. I think that's part of the problem Jeff, I don't know how good it's insulated.. it's a box made out of 1/8" wood that has pink insulation (not sure how think) and drywall inside.. so it does have some insulation, but I don't think I'd consider this to be overly insulated.. I used this box in the past for a boa cage (actually I used that box as a cage for a little over 10 years), so that's the reason I'm using for the incubator (plus it's got 2 almost full-glass doors)... I perhaps would be building a totally different one sometime in the future depending how this one works out...

Anyways, it was still 90F when I woke up this morning, so it seems to be working so far... As for the probe, I've emailed Helix for a longer probe.. I may change the location of the probe somewheres else.. I'll have to do some experimenting with that at the last stages of the project (once I get a heat sink in there, etc).

Thanks!
Bristen.

[Bristen]

Here's another update for those who care (probably just Jeff LOL!)...

The heat tape is running quite hot.. I'm going to add another 3' section... I checked this morning and the heat tape was well over 100F to keep the enclosure at 90F... the temp in the box appeared to be perfectly ok though...

I'd rather have more heat tape than required to make sure that it does not get over the dangerous 95F as much as possible.. that would only happen when you first fire up the incubator and it initially heats everything up, so the risks of the heat tape over-heating would be much lower than what it is currently...

Later,
Bristen.

[Jeff_Favelle]

If the heat tape is that hot, yet the box is only 90F, then you are LOSING heat every second, which means that its not a very good incubator. If the power goes out for even a few hours, your temps will dip to room levels. Not to mention the inefficiency of running more power than you'd need to with a fully insulated box.

It will STILL work, just not my first option for incubating eggs.

[Bristen]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
If the heat tape is that hot, yet the box is only 90F, then you are LOSING heat every second, which means that its not a very good incubator. If the power goes out for even a few hours, your temps will dip to room levels. Not to mention the inefficiency of running more power than you'd need to with a fully insulated box.

It will STILL work, just not my first option for incubating eggs.

I'll check again once I get home tonight... I had the door opened for a minute before I checked the temperature on the heat tape, so maybe the Helix had already sent full power to the heat tape because of the drop in temperature? Also there is nothing to hold the heat in there to begin with.. no heat sink yet, no shelfs, no egg boxes, etc... heating an empty warehouse (no matter how well it is insulated) is much more difficult than heating crowded office space which has much more matter to keep the heat in the building...

With regards to this particular incubator, the front has a lot of glass.. anything with that much glass won't be very efficient... this incubator will not be the most efficient incubator ever built, that I knew from the start...

one thing my father had recommended, is to duct-tape some foam on the outside of the box... also, I probably have heat loss on the un-insulated floor (3/4" plywood). I was planning to insulate that from underneath. Will only take a few minutes to screw in a piece of foam on the bottom, so that will be easy (will be doing that for sure). Also, I have weather stripping purchased for the doors that is not currently installed (door almost close perfectly, but not quite.. weather stripping will help with that a lot I think.. RayTek shows a few spots of heat loss around doors). The drywall inside is cracked at a few spots.. I will be fixing that up as well. The hole where the wires come out of the box is a tad bigger than required and is only currently scealed with toilet paper stuffed in it (unused heh)... there are multiple things I can do to improve the box's efficiency... some of them that I will certainly be doing...

I totally agree this will not be the greatest incubator in the world, but it will much easier for me than to build one from scratch and still provides a lot of incubation space. Some have used much less than that and were successful in incubating eggs... On top of everything else, if I ever decide to drop this incubator after a season or two for whatever reason, a lot of the equipment can be ripped out and placed into the new one...

Thanks for being my friend Jeff, now I'll have to buy some snakes from you or something lol! ;-)

Later,
Bristen.

[Jeff_Favelle]

LOL, no worries mate! I just want you to be successful in this, as I can see how motivated you are! Its awesome!

[JDouglas]

As usual Favelle is giving good advice. Sounds like your getting it all figured out.

Hey Jeff when my balls reach breeding size I plan on making a incubator out of my closet in the snake room. First I will remove the drywall and insulate it big time. I plan on using a 2 ft electric baseboard heater controlled by a propotional thermostat. A large fan will circulate the air and it will have a smoke and fire alarm that will call me if anything should happen. I will put up a few shelves and hatch the eggs in five gallon buckets with glass on top just like in the Barker BP video. I think I'm just as excited about building the incubator as I am about hatching the eggs.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Should work awesome Jaremy! But remember how you incubated the Carpet eggs? Works even better for Ball eggs!

[Bristen]

just another update... I was not able to touch the incubater for a little (about a week now already!) because I caught influenza, yuk!...

Anyways, I added another 3' section of 11" heat tape... total of 9' now in the incubator... it's keep the temperature ok, and the heat tape is running as hot but it's still a tad over 100F which is still hot. However, the heat tape is not jammed anywheres and is open to get cooled down by air, so it should be ok... it is however hotter than recommended...

After studying my incubator with the RayTek, I can easily see where the heat loss is with my box... all walls are just 1 to 2 degrees above other objects in the room... however, the glass panes can be as hot as 89F... I feared that the glass front of the incubator would be a big heat loss... not very efficient unfortunately :-(

However, I've seen people build incubators with old pop coolers, etc that have a ton of glass.. those are probably very inefficient as well. But they have worked. So, I guess for now, it will have to do.. just more power consumption, that's all...

anyways, that's it for now...

Later,
Bristen.

[paulsreef]

Last year I incubated my beardie eggs in a 35 gallon aquarium with 6" of water and an aquarium heater. I maintain about 84 degrees in a room that was about 68-72 degrees. My reptile room is a constant 82-85 degrees at a 5 foot elevation. I may just keep the eggs in rubbermaids w/damp vermiculite this time round. Snake eggs I believe must be kept warmer.
Paul.

[Bristen]

for whatever it is worth, when I said the glass pane could be 89F I was mistaken (*edit* should of read "was a mistake).. 82F is the highest the RayTek would give on the glass panes and not 89F... oups...

Bristen.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Glass doesn't read very well with the temp guns because of a the reflectivity. You're better off putting a peice of masking tape on the glass, waiting 10 minutes, and then temp-gunning the tape.

[Bristen]

oh, how interesting... I forgot about highly reflective materials could mess up the RayTek.. good call.. I'll do that right now.

Thanks for the tip!
Bristen.