# DIY: Cooler-Bator



## Steadfast (Aug 20, 2014)

*DIY: Cooler-Bator*
*Make your own Big Incubator for a tiny price!*

Here is my project

First I located and dragged out a "big Honkin" forgotton 50 gallon cooler from under my house.










It was GROSS so cleaned it up with Bleach and even some acitone!


Roughly following this scematic, which I found on the internet.

I tossed in some full water bottles into the cooler for heat banks (keeps the temp from rising and falling too fast) and meassuered out the screen to fit on top of them.




The tray is tossed in for spacing and will act as a humidity tray.
(I used a flat tray because Humidity comes from the amount of space the water is spread across not the depth of the water)

I then rigged up a tube and surrenge to fill and empty this tray without needing to open the cooler.




next I had to cut a row off the egg turner to fit into the cooler.


Notice that I have the room to fit in 2 of these turners!
This will give me an over 50 egg capacity!
(which I will do as soon as I can spare the $50.)


for now I centered the one I have.


Marking with tape how high up the inside of the cooler all this stuff is,
I emptied it, and started making the cuts and vent holes.
Here is my window cut.

A big veiwing window is a beautiful thing...


Next, I added in the fan!


I used an un-used extra pancake fan I had laying around from my wind turbine project.

notice the fan is spaced away from the side of the cooler with long screws from the wall and the two vent holes on both sides of the fan.


I also used an old cell phone inverter plug I found in a box of plugs I have saved for over 15 years as all my electronics broke...


I also found some old Thermometers...
one of them has a probe I can stick inside a "water wiggler "to measure the heat inside my eggs.



Finally, it took 10 hours, but here it is done!


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## Steadfast (Aug 20, 2014)

On Amazon I ordered this increadibly reliable and insainly cheap digital thermostate:









Docooler 10A 110V Digital Temperature Controller Thermocouple -58~194 Fahrenheit with Sensor

Just: $9.95 + $2.49 shipping

The exhausted Chinese rickshaw guy delivered my digital thermostat from China which took 30 days to deliver!

Its programming was very confusing, but once I finally figured out what the poorly translated directions were trying to say it worked great!


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## Steadfast (Aug 20, 2014)

some photos of my hatch

and the super affordible home made brewder I made too...


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## Steadfast (Aug 20, 2014)

some technical concept drawings


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Funny you should mention those poorly translated instructions today. I had a conversation with a relative this weekend about that same thing that was not related to chickens.

I've always preferred clear sided brooders. Peeps are not as shocked when something suddenly appears over head.


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## powderhogg01 (Jun 4, 2013)

good work, looks like a charm, I am getting one of those temp controllers to go along with my humidity controller. I have not done any calibrations to find if its exact or not, but it does good keeping it close.


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## stewieb71 (Sep 20, 2014)

Nice job!! Many of the same components I have in mine. I'm a strong believer in filling any spare space with water containers for temperature stability. Not a criticism but I'd utilise that vacant space with some large filled water bottles. 
Here's what I did.


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