Wine cooler / Incubator conversion

[pumpkinman]

So I got a free wine cooler of a local classified site and decided to convert it to a incubator.

Here is a pic of the unit stripped. The back wall you see is where the coil was. There was a plate in front of that with a fan in it.
I drilled a hole for a bottom fan and cut a square hole to make a duct from the top fan to the bottom one.

Ok so here is the plate reinstalled. The top hole will have a fan that will suck and the bottom hole will have a fan that blows.

Here is the unit upside down, you can see the compressor compartment and the rigid insulation that is acting as a duct and connecting the top and bottom fan.

Top and bottom fan installed and 3' total of 11" flexwatt. 1' on the bottom, one on the back and one on the top. The one on the bottom and back are connected to one channel of my herpstat and the top is connected to another channel.

Some of the wood shelves thrown in. I have a total of 6

I am testing it now and will make adjustments if necessary.

Cheers.

Chris

 

[pumpkinman]

So with a bit of adjustment I got the top and bottom temps down to a .7F difference. Not bad!
I will mention that I switched the fans around. The top fan now blows and the bottom one sucks. It keeps a way more constant temp that way. Sometimes things are opposite of what you think.

 

[Nolapete]

Curious as to why you have one blowing and one sucking instead of both blowing?

My wife picked up a wine cooler off of Craigslist which I am tasked with converting for our bearded dragons.

What are you using for moisture?

Where did you get the heat tape?

What's the best place to get the herpstat from?

Any help or additional information would be appreciated.

Pete

 

[pumpkinman]

Where are you from Pete?

There is a baffle in the back where I removed the cooling coils. I use that to circulate the air. One sucks and one blows so that there is a constant circulation from top to bottom.

Chris

 

[Nolapete]

I'm in New Orleans.

We have 3 male, 5 female subadult/adult beardies. Our leatherback laid 30+- slugs a month ago. She had never been with a male. We tried one of our two smaller males with her and he couldn't complete the deal even though very interested. We received our third male, another leatherback, today, so we're hoping he can. So, the poke from the wife to get the incubator done.

I haven't looked at the insides of the wine cooler she acquired, but I'm guessing it doesn't have any coolant. I think the people she got it from said it wasn't cooling, so they replaced it. Go figure, my wife puts an ad on Craigslist looking for a free wine cooler that isn't working and gets one the same day. She's always finding stuff for free. Two of our Russian tortoises she got for free; one had a 40 breeder and all accessories included.

I'm thinking of plumbing a fan to some dryer vent hose and blowing the air from bottom to top since hot air rises. Heat tape seems to be the easiest, but I'm guessing an outdoor flood would be resistant to moisture and provide enough heat. I'm thinking about using a ceramic tile between the light and the egg shelves to shield them and create a heat sink. Lots of possibilities.