Temperature Controled Insulated Box - need advice.

[YourRabbitGirl]

@Chic Rustler built an awesome incubator and he's an HVAC guy. Maybe he has some advice...

Can't we just buy those kinds of machines? Devices? I had a bad experience of asking a "professional" to build us a hanging cabinet above our kid's cabinet before. (I know, completely unrelated to what you guys trying to build) after 8 to 9 months it fell off. Good thing the kids are in school when it happened. :|:|:|:|

 

[CrealCritter]

EZ I like EZ. Box heats up nice, but being 57 degrees outside, that's as about as cool as I can get it. I need to start lagering at 55 degrees and step down 5 degrees a day to 35 and hold it there as close as possible for 4 weeks.

It's very warm for January here in Southern IL. But the weather guessers are saying it's supposed to change next week.

Assuming the weather cooperates, I think the box should be ok for a lagering chamber.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I made it out of scrap, including hinges and the heater. I did purchase a small fan off eBay and put it in the heating chamber. I tested it last night. Ambient air temp was 48 at the time. I was able to get the box to 105 degrees in less than 1 minutes and cool it back down to ambient air temp in also less then 1 minute. So I "think" its good to go. I'm waiting for the mail main to deliver my inkbird temperature controller (ITC-308) and that should about do it. Then I'll be ready to load 5 gallon kegs of beer in it, to lager.

Being made of wood I can mount shelves pretty easy and turn it into a incubator and geminate seeds. It should come in pretty handy.

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Speaking about the mailman
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So... tell me about this inkbird. I think that's the company that made the thermostat we used in last incubator build. But, it had to be wired in. It looks like yours is already pre-wired??? Just plug in your heat source??? How is the wiring set up? Does it have a heating and cooling thermostatic option?

 

[Lazy Gardener]

So, if I'm reading the specs correctly... I could plug a light into it, and set it for 100*F. And it would hold that temp inside the box within +/- 1* of that temp? Do you realize how stupid simple it would be to build an incubator with this? Not that I need to... I already have 2. But... why would anyone buy an incubator, when they could MacGuyver one... and not even need to pick up a screwdriver??? I'm loving it!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Perhaps you need to pick up a mini fridge, and use the inkbird to control the refrigeration to obtain the temps you need.

 

[CrealCritter]

So, if I'm reading the specs correctly... I could plug a light into it, and set it for 100*F. And it would hold that temp inside the box within +/- 1* of that temp? Do you realize how stupid simple it would be to build an incubator with this? Not that I need to... I already have 2. But... why would anyone buy an incubator, when they could MacGuyver one... and not even need to pick up a screwdriver??? I'm loving it!

Yep... It's programmable to plus or minus 30 to plus or minus 1 degrees. So min 2 degrees and maximum 60 degrees. It's a nice and EZ temperature controller, for sure.

 

[CrealCritter]

Hi

I've never done exactly what your doing and I'm not familiar with the components...except the space heater. I can tell you that your gonna have a hard time hatching eggs because of over shoot. by the time the element cools off the temp will rise a few degrees over set point. I had to choke mine down to 150 watts.

Hey there man, thanks for the reply. I think I have the box dialed in for lagering but may need to change the temperature controller program for incubation. The temperature controller is a slick little plug and play unit.

I had to set my temperature differential to plus or minus 2 degrees, else the cooling fan and cermaic heater were fighting each other. What I mean... Is when the heater would kick on it would warm up to about 1.7 degrees over the target temperature. This would cause the cooling fan to kick on when I had it set to 1 degree over target temperature. The cooling fan would initially blow air though the cermaic heating element and raise the temperature even further. Then it would cool to about 1.5 degrees below the target. But by setting both heat and cool to 2 degrees above and below target it's fine now. The cooling fan doesn't kick on unless I lower the target temperature.

Like I said it's a slick little unit and highly programmable, it even has an adjustable compressor delay, so you won't burn up a compressor. Not to mention programmable low and high temperature audiable alarms.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

When incubating, I kept fan going all the time (computer fan). with the first build. Temp stayed steady. In the second build, I found that there was too much temp fluctuation with the fan, so... I ended up converting to still air at around day 14. Still had a good hatch.

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

Yep... It's programmable to plus or minus 30 to plus or minus 1 degrees. So min 2 degrees and maximum 60 degrees. It's a nice and EZ temperature controller, for sure.

That sounds so nice, Where can I get one? I know that my dad will be surprised if we have one.