Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Finally finished building my new incubator. I made it out of expanded PVC sheeting. My buddy owns a sign shop and he uses it all the time for signs. I have flex-watt heat tape for heat, and 2 computer fans to move the air around. A Helix thermostat to control temps. All together it cost less than $500 to build.

Now I need some eggs!!!!!!!!!!!! Come on girls, lets go!!

Bill J.

Nice work!!!

We are in the process of converting an old frig. How did you hook up your fans? We can't seem to get ours right.... burnt one of them up
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Balls
1.3 Pastels
0.2 Cinnamons
1.0 Fire
1.0 Spider
1.0 100% Het Albino/100% Het Pied
0.3 100% Het Albino/50% Het Pied
1.1 100% Het Pied
0.2 PH Albino
1.5 Normals (1.0 unknown)
Boas
1.0 Salmon
0.1 Pastel
Corns
1.1 Bloodred Het Hypo 66% Het Anery

When I did mine I wired them up through an old cell phone charger. It puts out a similar ammount of volts that will not burn up the pc fans. I believe that a pc fan needs about 5 volts DC (I think) to run and if you are wiring it to 110 volt ac they will burn up.

Since cell phone companies change charger styles every 6 months or so you should have no problems finding an old one.

I'll have to try that... we have plenty laying around. Thanks!!!
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Balls
1.3 Pastels
0.2 Cinnamons
1.0 Fire
1.0 Spider
1.0 100% Het Albino/100% Het Pied
0.3 100% Het Albino/50% Het Pied
1.1 100% Het Pied
0.2 PH Albino
1.5 Normals (1.0 unknown)
Boas
1.0 Salmon
0.1 Pastel
Corns
1.1 Bloodred Het Hypo 66% Het Anery

>>I'll have to try that... we have plenty laying around. Thanks!!!
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Be sure the milliamp level is high enough on the converter to cover the draw of the fan.Otherwise it will get hot,and how hot depends on the draw..The pc fans i use are 150ma so the 300+ ma converters i use don't get anything more than warm to the touch.

,..and if the converter says 9volt on it?..Then it will just run a 12v fan at a slower pace is all.

good luck/have fun
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Charles Glaspie
picasaweb.google.com/coldthumb

Your incubator looks first class. Have you put substrate in the egg boxes and loaded it to what you expect in clutches and then checked your temps with the fan operating. Be careful, I made my incubator and it took me weeks to fine tune the temps. I also used the same egg boxes you are using. They look like they will block the airflow and the temps will vary big time. I had to move my boxes side ways to keep the airflow moving. Just some advice that I wanted to share. Fine tuning these incubators can take some time.

Bill
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2.1 Tripple Het Caramel, Orange Ghost, Genetic Stripe
1.1 Het Lavenders
1.1 Het Caramel Albino
0.1 Het Albino
0.1 Spider Het Albino
0.1 Het Pied
1,1 Pastel Het for Orange Ghost
1.0 Albino
0.1 Spinner
1.1 Super Pastel
0.1 Jungle Pastel
1.0 Pied 50 percent White
0.1 Clown
0.3 Normal
1.1 Kids
0.1 Spouse
1.0 Chocolate Lab

Great job! Love it!
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www.geckobabies.com

The heat tape is very close to the boxes on the sides.

Thank you everyone for your input. I have about 3 weeks before my first clutch is due to be laid and will be working out all the quirks in the meantime.
The fan is actually a small fan used to cool aquarium hoods. It is available online through Foster and Smith. It comes with the DC converter. Just plug it in.

Bill J.

Yes this is why most use the 11 in flexwatt and put it down the back like this

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Tim Johnson
Royal Morphz
702-672-5101

Sweet looking incubator. As others have suggested I think you are asking for trouble with the heat tape so close and with direct line of site to your egg boxes. Ball python eggs are pretty forgiving with regard to temps and can handle pretty wide swings, but they handle a little cooling much better than overheating. You have two problems to overcome and consider. First every time you open the incubator and it cools down the heat will come on to restore the set temperature. Because the incubator is so large, the heat tape could be on for a few to several minutes to restore the set temperature. The large size of the incubator could also compound this issue due to the fact that you will most likely be opening and closing it more than a small incubator with only a few clutches. This will definitely cause the egg boxes close to the heat tape to heat up more quickly and to a higher temp due to the fact that heat is transferred more quickly and "efficiently" by infrared waves coming from the heat tape. Because the boxes are so close to the heat tape the infrared waves will cause the egg box to heat up more quickly and to a considerably higher temp than if the heat could only be transferred thermally via the air. Ever notice how hot a piece of plastic is left in direct sunlight as opposed to one exposed to the same ambient temp but not direct sunlight? Same principle. just a little different wave length transferring the heat. Test it out by putting testing the temp on the surface of the egg box next to the heat tape compared to the temp of the plastic of the egg box on the side away from the heat tape. Sweet looking incubator.
Good luck
Grant

Do you recognize this?

Mike,
Looks like you are filling his dance card. Let me know how his offspring look. I only got a couple of late clutches from him last year as he was young, but there were a few with wild patterns and coloring.
By the way, are you an ultrasound expert yet? I hope you are finding it useful.
Grant

Grant,
should have gotten a male visual, this past season had several large females could have paired it up with...looks like the het pair might go this year.

what you got cooking? when's the new site coming onboard?

Pitoon

>>Mike,
>>Looks like you are filling his dance card. Let me know how his offspring look. I only got a couple of late clutches from him last year as he was young, but there were a few with wild patterns and coloring.
>>By the way, are you an ultrasound expert yet? I hope you are finding it useful.
>>Grant
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