wine fridge incubator

[adz83]

I picked up a second hand wine fridge last week for $70,still in great working condition. Im converting it into an incubator and wanna know a couple of things:

Is it best to mount the heat cord on the sides of the fridge or can i weave it throughout the shelves in there?

Is drilling a hole in the back or side the best way to feed the cord through?

Should I bother connecting the cooling to a thermostat aswel for summer or just leave it disconnected?

Cheers

 

[mummabear]

I use 2 thermostats for mine. One for the fridge for cooling in summer and one for the heat cord. It's great i never have to worry about hot days. I just run the cords thought the door so I don't have to drill anything. I run the heat cord around the outsides of the shelves. I just use a heat mat in my small one.

 

[RSPcrazy]

I have heat cord on all the walls in my incubator (not the shelves) to avoid hot spots. If you place the cord on the shelves and a tub is sitting to close to it, then that tub will get hotter then what the thermostat is set to (because the thermostat controls the ambient temps). The aim is to have the heat source as far away from the eggs as possible, so the eggs are heated by the soft ambient heat, not intense heat from being to close to the heat source.

Drilling a hole through the back or side is fine, but make sure you plug the hole with something insulating.

I reckon it's a great idea to be able to cool the incubator as well as heat it, it couldn't hurt if you live in a area that gets pretty hot.

 

[adz83]

cool thanks for that

 

[shaneb]

I use 2 thermostats for mine. One for the fridge for cooling in summer and one for the heat cord. It's great i never have to worry about hot days.

I've never considered using a 2nd thermostat to run the fridge, great idea. Do you just set it for say 32C & the fridge comes on when the temp goes above that temp, then turns off when it drops below 32C?

 

[mummabear]

Thats exactly what happens. I use the Habistat cool control thermostat for the fridge and a pulse proportional one for the heat source.

 

[Snowman]

I did this last season and had 100% success rate with a clutch and a half of imbricata eggs. (the other half went into a foam box incubator, just to test different methods of incubation. They too had 100% success, but was not as fun as seeing through the glass to keep an eye on things).
I just ran the cord on the back and sides of the fridge using 10mm coreflute. I find that when cord is placed through the coreflute it is more efficient as it heats the air in the chamber it is threaded through. The heat seems to make the cord a lot hotter than I get without the coreflute... I also wired the internal fan to stay on and the thermometer display on the door to work properly. I also used a second probe thermometer that was a bit more accurate than the built in one in the fridge, which had no decimal reading.
I used a habistat pulse proportional thermostat, which I cut the plugs off and wired in and also siliconed the probe inplace. (disadvantage of this is you cant use the thermostat during periods of non incubation, the advantage is I simply pull the incubator out of storage and it's good to go!)
The box in the bottom was just to keep the container off the ground for more air circulation and to keep the container off the cord that is thread across the bottom.
This year I may install some brackets so I can fit two shelves in and do away with the bottom box.

 

[shaneb]

thanks fellas, top stuff.

 

[mad_at_arms]

I've never considered using a 2nd thermostat to run the fridge, great idea. Do you just set it for say 32C & the fridge comes on when the temp goes above that temp, then turns off when it drops below 32C?

I just picked up a wine cooler last week also.
I am using a mini digital thermomstat as discussed in these threads
http://www.aussiepythons.com/forum/general-reptile-discussion-42/anyone-used-thermostats-156419/
http://www.aussiepythons.com/forum/general-reptile-discussion-42/possible-thermostat-140387/

It has both heating and cooling function.
I already use one on my insect rack out in the shed and the cooling function was invaluable last summer.

 

[shaneb]

Cheers mate. I was thinking about running a pair of Microclimate thermostats. My fridge is about 200w so I would need the B1's from memory. Can anyone see any issues with one of these operating a fridge, thus coming on to cool the incubator once the temp exceeded say 33C, then turning off once the temp dropped below that (whereby the heating would commence)?

 

[Snowman]

I wouldn't do it. I'd just keep the incubator inside the house and set your aircon to come on (when you aren't home) if it hits say 35.
The thermostats are wired to power on at a drop in temp not power on to cool. So you'd need a relay to make it come on to cool.
You would also need a buffer between heating and cooling and an electrical interlock to ensure you don't have a situation where both coming on at once.
Incubating eggs is easy. They are designed to hatch. Don't over complicate it and you will have good results. A foam broccoli box incubator will work just as well for this reason.