Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, I just got a pepsi cooler that is 35" high, 21" wide, and 22" deep. Now I was woundering how much heat tape to use inside the cooler. Should I put an 11" peice across the bottom or put 3" peice's down both sides in the back. It also has a built in fan and light that works when the compressor is turned off. I am getting a HELIX thermostat to control the heat tape. I would appreciate any help or suggestions. Should I use the 11" or the 3" heat tape? THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!!! BOB

Use as little heat as you can get away with. A little bit of 3 inch should be fine, as long as the incubator isn't in a cold room.

I would put a piece of 11" in the bottom and put a sterilite tub full of water on top of it. This will stabilize the temp a lot and will also increase humidity nicely. One thing to be careful of... watch the fan that's built in. My first incubator was running too hot and I couldn't figure out why. Come to find out, the fan was creating too much heat and the heat tape wasn't actually kicking on at all.

We created our Incubator from an old bread oven. The oven portion did not work so we used 3" heat tape and looped it on three sides stareting and the bottom going up the side, across the top and down the other side. In the bottom we have 4 2 liter coke bottles filled with water to help insulate the incubator as well as we used 1/2 foam insulation between the heat tape and the inside sides of the unit. We used a johnson control unit to control the temps with a 4" fan at the top going all the time to circulate the heat. The unit is 5' tall and 2' wide and deep and we had awesome sucess with it in hatching our eggs and will keep using it more to come in the future.
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....I would rather have a Bottle in front of me.....than a Frontal Lobotomy....

Rob Trenor
RK Reptiles
www.rkreptiles.com
www.rkreptiles.net
www.ballpythonmorphs.net

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can you post a pic of this please I am in need of an incubator and would like to build my own thanks -Matt

Here is a photo of the pepsi cooler. I got it from a man that was going to scrap it and get around 20 to 25 dollars for it. So I offered him 20 bucks for it and brought it home. I am getting a Helix thermostat to controll the heat tape. Unsure on what size heat tape to use inside it yet! It holds 10 of the 7 quart shoe box style sterilite tubs. Good luck on this up coming breeding season. THANKS, BOB

I made an incubator out of a cooloer very similar to that and just used two light sockets with energy saver bulbs and it is working great. I wired up the fan on a sep switch and with the lights at the top, the fan circulates the heat fine. I started out with 2 60 watt bulbs and it got way to hot, like 200 deg or more. whatever you use make sure you test it way in advance. good luck

what wattage do you use now instead of the 60 watt?