Hello all. The impending ice storm here in my part of Virginia has refocused my thoughts on a problem I have thought about in the past. What in the world can I do about my incubator in the event of a power failure? I have a home-made cooler type incubator that works wonderfully for me. Of course the incubator runs on regular household current. Now here's the kicker. My facility is currently arranged in a way that makes a traditional gas powered generator not feasable. So, how can I provide a constant temp in my incubator during a power outage? I've got Irian Jaya Carpet eggs cooking right now, and my first ball clutch is due to be laid in about 6 weeks or so. So far, I've been lucky and not had a power outage during incubation seasons of the past, but I know I'm due. The only possible option that is see is to use the chemical hot packs, but they are inconsistent, consume oxygen, and would require constant monitoring. The oxygen thing scares me though, so I don't even like this as a last resort. Any ideas or suggestions?
Joe Pociask Pythons
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Back-up power for incubator (i.e. protection during power outages)........any suggestions?
Replies (6)
See if this link will help I have a natural gas hook up. Electric comes on in 8 seconds.
Cost around $300 a year for maintenance.
link
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RicK @ BbI
Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!
Purchase an inverter that has a built-in battery charger. A sine-wave inverter is preferable to a modified sine-wave inverter, but either will work.
Purchase 1 or more 12V deep-cycle gel-cell batteries.
The inverter is plugged into a wall outlet, the incubator is plugged into the outlet from the inverter, and the 12V batteries are connected to the inverter.
When the house power is on, the inverter provides house power to the incubator and the inverter charges the 12V batteries.
When the house power goes out, the inverter switches over and draws 12V from the batteries; this 12V power is transformed to 120V and is used to power the incubator.
The run-time in battery-mode is dependent upon the power consumed by your incubator and the number and capacity of batteries that you connect (in series) to the inverter.
The beauty of this system is that it automatically handle power outages without the need for manual intervention.
Mine does that. Turns on in eight seconds. Turns off as soon as power comes back. Not only does this for my reptile building it takes care of rec room and kitchen. I also have gas heat so my home is heated. Great during winter.
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RicK @ BbI
Ball Boutique,Inc.
The home of the singing snakes!
Batteries wired in series add voltage, seems like 24 volts or more would burn out your power inverter.
Paul
"The run-time in battery-mode is dependent upon the power consumed by your incubator and the number and capacity of batteries that you connect (in series) to the inverter. "
Yes...parallel...unlike both my brain cells which are obviously wired in series and self-destructing...
LOL...
Thanks!!!
What about a UPS? (uninterrupted Power supply) You can get these for computers but I am sure if you get the larger server type UPS's they can keep an incubator going for hours. Not sure how much power your incuvator needs but if it is about the same or less than say, a computer monitor, shouldn't drain much from the UPS. You could also buy some insulation and wrap it around the outside of your incubator, to slow down heat loss when the power does go off.
Any gas/propane/kerosine generator could be used as well.
