# Diy Hatchling Rack



## Peckoltia (Feb 13, 2017)

G'day 

I put together my rack on the weekend with the help of a mate. Turned out really well. Made the tubs fit nice and snug to avoid the use of lids. Rack is run off two thermostats - these are simple on off thermostats (habistat), I may change these to pulse thermostats later down the line (easy switch over), but at the moment the tubs seems to be holding heat very well at the hot end. Getting a nice constant 32-32.5C. Each thermostat controls a heat cord each. We attached the top shelf for a bit of storage and to do 'work on' but this can easily be removed and more levels for tubs added if need be later down the track.

I got some aluminium tape from Jay car and taped down the heat cords that have been routed into the wood (two passes under each tub) to create a heat sink. The tape from Jay car is nice and thin and the boxes don't catch on the tape at all. 

Rack holds 20x 7L tubs.


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## Jonesy1990 (Feb 13, 2017)

This looks great. It will be very user friendly by the look of it. The work area on top is a nice feature. I recently made some racks myself, I might have to use some ideas from this one on my next set.  


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## Peckoltia (Feb 13, 2017)

Thanks mate.

That's what I did 'borrowed' a few ideas from racks I've seen online and come up with a few new ideas. Not a whole heap I would change at this stage.

Now fingers crossed that all my eggs hatch otherwise could be a lonely 12months for the new rack.


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## Jonesy1990 (Feb 13, 2017)

Yeah cool. I currently have 16 stimsons in my latest rack I built. Just starting to sell some now. 
Good luck with your eggs I hope they are all healthy for you. 


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## alex.snaith (Feb 16, 2017)

Probably a stupid question, but how do you know that each tub is the right temperature if the thermostat is only in one tub?


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## Peckoltia (Feb 16, 2017)

Not a silly question at all mate, I have found with this hobby if you are wondering the answer, there are probably another 10 people wondering the same thing, but just don't want to ask from fear of feeling silly.

There are two thermostats. One runs the bottom 3 shelves, and the other runs the top two shelves - each has a heat cord.

The thermostat probes are actually taped (aluminum tape) to the aluminum tape that covers the heat cords (essentially the heating element). I chose to do this, rather than have a probe in a tub, as it avoids the need for adding tape inside any of the hatchie tubs - tape inside any enclosures is a big no no. I guess I could have hot glued the thermostat probe down to the inside of one of the tubs, but as you pull that tub in and out it would create a bunching effect of the thermostat probe cord (if that makes sense) and I could foresee this being a pain in the ass.

But too answer your question - in an ideal world, I would have a thermostat running each level. As people will say hot air rises and there is the potential for the tubs higher in the rack to be warmer than the tubs on the bottom shelves. At the moment I am running temperature tests inside each tub and the temperature I have set the heat cords at is reflective in the tubs ~32.5C. I have checked the temperature differential at the hot end of one of the tubs on the 3rd level and on the 5th level (remembering that one thermostat is running the bottom 3 levels) and the difference in temperature at the hot end is 0.1C, which is close enough for me and could even be a difference in accuracy between the two thermometers.

All the tubs are the exact same dimensions and will be fitted out internally identically to each other. This is only a relatively small rack (20x 7L tubs) so the potential for variation from bottom to top shelf is relatively minimal, and I have split the shelves up to run off two thermostats to minimize this difference even more (probably could have gotten away with just the one thermostat).

Cheers,

Alex


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## alex.snaith (Feb 16, 2017)

Thank you for your extremely detailed explanation, I see how it works now. Thanks a lot,

Cheers,
Alex

P.S. nice name ahahaha


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