The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Housing, Health & Hatching
Custom Incubators
John:
Max,
Thanks. We have somewhat similar backgrounds. I served part of a Die Maker apprenticeship, but I'm (was) a Patternmaker by trade having worked wood, metal, layout and design. I worked in both corporate and job shops and even had a small wood shop with a couple employees out in my pole barn years ago.
The part that I dreaded most about building the incubators was having to cut up the cabinet material. It came in 5' by 8' sheets. I asked the place that I ordered it from if they could cut it and found that for just $15 they would cut all the pieces to size. This also saved on freight, by having all the pieces fit on one pallet and all the cuts were square and most were dimensionally very accurate.
Max:
I have worked for the same company for over 24 years. I learned the machining and tool & die on the job and went to school for the programming. I feel very fortunate to work for such a great company and the benefits are great as well.
I've been planning to rebuild my GQF cabinets. The plastic board looks really nice. I'm glad to hear they will cut it for you, that's a huge time saver! How are the insulating properties of the plastic compared to wood? Also, how do you like the Herpstat controller? I may use those when I rebuild...
John:
--- Quote ---How are the insulating properties of the plastic compared to wood? Also, how do you like the Herpstat controller?
--- End quote ---
I couldn't find anything on the website for the plastic board about insulation value. I believe it would be similar to or better than plywood and it has so much more going for it over marine grade plywood.
So far the Herpstat controllers are working great. They are keeping the temp very close to the set temp and generally only vary a few tenths of a degree above and below that set temp of 99.5. It is pretty neat that although the heat elements are 350 watts in each incubator they don't run at full power/watts. The Herpstat is a "proportional" temperature controller and only sends enough power to the elements to maintain the required temperature. With most incubators the heating element is either on (100%) or off and the thermostat works as an On - Off switch. I'm sure these proportional temperature controllers will save on my electric bill as they send just enough juice to the elements...like a dimmer switch for house lights. :D
Mike Gilbert:
John, will you be making any more of these for sale? My old GQF 1202 is getting a little creaky, and I don't know how much longer it will last without some major work. Already the timer went out so I'm tilting the eggs with the manual switch.
John:
--- Quote ---will you be making any more of these for sale?
--- End quote ---
I don't plan to Mike, but you'll be first on the list if I do. Someday I hope to find out how much I have invested in making these. Then I would have a better idea if they would be worth my time to make and sell. I also want to get a few hatches out of them to see how well they work. Even though the temp varies very little at the probe that is plugged into the temp controller, the temp is not the same in every area in the cabinets. This is true with any incubator I've used. With 2 circulating fans in each unit I'm hoping these will be more consistent than others, but I've also read that GQF is now putting 2 fans in their cabinet incubators.
1/20/2013 update: It looks like I have about $630 into materials for each hatcher and $830 per setter. Since my labor was free, I ended up with what should be great incubators at very reasonable costs. If I doubled those material costs to compensate for my labor that would be about the price I would have to retail them at if I wanted to do that.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version