before i incubate and hatch new chicks, i'm gonna make a new version of the incubator instructions as an incubator i'm using a polystyrene box, but you can basically take what ever you want from the dresser to the refrigerator, anything is possible, it is only important that they well insulated. a good site for homemade incubators is backyardchickens.com. so let's start with the things you need to build a incubator i'm using a styrofoam box (61cm * 46cm * 32cm) 24in*18in*12,5in two pringles cans as windows, the universal thermostat ut200 by conrad,
an e27 lightbulb with 40w an e27 lamp socket with a power cord power cord with plug, one luster terminal, a 12v charger with an output of 1000ma two 8cm (3.14) inches pc fans with 0.14 amps 4 screws and nuts for the fan, two 0.2 ml plastic cups for the humidity a freezer grid to set the eggs on it
a piece aviary wire to prevent the chicks from getting to the lamp a thermometer and a hygrometer. as tools, a screwdriver, a knife and a side cutter, and a soldering iron or electrical tape. let's go to the instructions you first make two holes into the sides of the box, one for the lamp and one for the cables. in the lower hole you put the light socket, in the upper one the cables of the thermostat and the fan.
to get the cables of the fan through the hole you have to take them out of the box, by pushing the hooks in. once you have plugged the cable through the hole, you can turn out the barbs again then you take the screws and attach the fan in the two upper corners of the incubator. it should look like this. the next step is the wiring the cables are not connected at any time with the power supply if you have no expireince with with wiring, you better keep your hands off it the fan cables have 2 different sites
on the left the female side and on the right the male side, the same thing for the boxes left female and right male. you have on the left the male and on the right the female plug you connect basically yellow with yellow and black with black. because of security reasons we put every thing in the box make sure that the barbs are back out make sure that you take a female box and plugg the male cable into the box, best with a red exterior and black interior order.
then you take the male box and plugg the female cable with the same order of red on the outside and black on the inside. you then put the two together and you are left on the right side with 2 times male and on the left with 2 female connectors now we take the 12volt power supply unit and cut off the plug, then we isolate the cores with a knife and twist the individual wires with each other on both sides.
the important thing is that not both cables are twisted together, only the individual wires of each cable it should look like this. then we go back to the fan cables we then cut the two female connector on the left and insulate them. these are then used as an adapter for the power supply. the two cut wires are then soldered with those of the power supply and wrapped with electrical tape,
you can also only electrical tape and forgett the soldering if you do it differently and connect the ac adapter directly to the fan, you should make sure that it works, befor soldering the cables the two other male connectors come back in the box and we can then use the builted adapter to operated the fans with the power supply unit you now have to look yourselfe which cables are connect to each other,
on the power supply unit cord are strokes which shows the negative cable and it goes to my red fan cable but in others cases, it goes to the black fan wire. the fans are used to evenly distribute the warm air in the incubator. you can imagine it like in a convection oven. you don't really need them, in a fanless incubator you have to switch the eggs position more often otherwise the eggs in the front are getting more heat than the eggs in the rear.
a fanless one is called a area breeder (in germany) and on with a fan a motor breeder.(in germany) let's go to the wiring of the lamp, if you can get to the inside of your lamp socket you can screw the power cord directly to the socket. since this is not possible for me, i need to connect both cables with to the luster terminals. this works again by color, you connect blue with blue and brown with brown.
and thats all the wiring the next step is the place for the eggs to prevent the from egg rolling around i'm usinf the freezer grid but you can basically can take the egg cartons or a w shaped bent wire. to protect the chicks we must prevent them from to the side of the lamp and the water. for that i connect the aviary wire
to the grid. how you do it is up to you for ideas you can go back to the backyard chickens website. now we will come to the lid you cut two holes in it, which are slightly smaller than the pringles packs. where you put the holes is up to you i placed one in the middle above the brood chamber and the other near the lamp to check the water level
and the humidity i have shortened the pringles cans and made some holes in the lid to allow the humidity to escape. as a final step now comes the thermostat, whose job is to regulate the temperature in the incubator, when the temperature falls below 37.4â°c (99,32f), the lamp is switches on and as soon as a temperature of 37.6 exceeded
the lamp is switched off again. you can also use other thermostats like heating or hot water thermostats. if you have a room with a constant room temperature you can do it completely without a thermostat and just use a dimmer or a thermal blanket or even put holes in the box untile the right temperature is reached it is then naturally prone and not as accurate.
so you should invest some money in a thermostat for safety, we check all the cables again especially the lamp cord we look if the colors match blue to blue and brown to brown if this is the case we look for any bare wires if there are any we put some tape over them if that fits, we take the power cable of the lamp
and put the cable in the thermostat then we take the thermostat and the power supply unit and connect the to a multiple plug turn on the whole thing on and when the light bulb lits and both fans are working th assembly instructions is finished the next step is to make a test run in which we try to maintain a constant temperature of 37.6 â° c and a constant humidity of about 60%
if we managed the humidity of 60% we raise the humidity to 80% and try keep it at a constant level, if it works we can order the eggs for hatching.