Sportsman "hack"

[Robbie]

I cleaned and sterilized my new-to-me older model Sportsman incubator. The model is 1502E, the dimensions are approx. 18" wide by 32" tall by 30" long. It's heavy, you need 2 people to move it. I have no idea how to run this, I'll just have to figure it out by doing.

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Here it is from the back, with the back panel removed. You can see the three tilting tray holders. The fan and mechanical stuff is on the top. None of the parts remove easily, so it was tricky to clean and sterilize the fan and wiring in here.

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These are some of the switches. The one on the left is the emergency wafer thermostat, set at 102oF that shuts off the heater if the digital thermostat fails. The hole to the right of it is for the humidity gauge, (broken but I have a digital humidity controller and I can stick the sensor in here. I might have to drill this hole a tiny bit larger. The next knob is probably for calibrating the digital thermostat. Then there is an Allen key taped to the panel, not sure for what yet. Then there is a thermometer (I have a Brinsea spot check I'll be putting in there instead, this thermometer can go on the bottom as a back up. Then there is part of a clip that holds the door shut.

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Here's the fan and thermostats. It's hard to see but heater coils run in front of the fan, behind the protective screen. You can see the stem of the thermometer at the very top. I think the black box thingie under that is the digital thermostat, then the emergency wafer thermostat, and then I think the heating coil electronics. A water pan goes in front of the fan. There's a hole (yellow plug in it) to run a hose from a water bucket on the side.

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This shows the tilting tray holders with the 3 egg trays, and the bottom one that does not tilt is the hatching tray. There are egg holders that go in the trays to keep the eggs upright. Two 30 egg holders fit easily into each tilting tray. A tray tilts in 3 hours.

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Picture of one of 3 door clips for the heavy plexiglass door.

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Back panel on, with 6 adjustable air holes. the fan sucks the air in from these holes. It looks skewed because of the wide angle cell phone lens but the 6 holes and covers are the same size.

The last photo shows the tilting tray switch. I haven't figured this out yet but I hope auto means that the trays tilt on their own, and off is where the switch goes at lockdown if you want the eggs to hatch in the tilting trays. I guess normally you could take out the eggs that are to hatch and put them on the bottom tray, and keep incubating eggs on the tilting trays from another set. I don't plan on doing that, all the eggs will be at the same stage of incubation.
There's also a fuse, and two idiot lights, one I suppose to show the power is on, the other for the tray mechanism., and the power cord. Now we just need to move the incubator upstairs and run it for a week to see how it goes.
One thing I don't like is that there is no off/on switch, when it's plugged in it's running, but that's easily rectified by using a switched surge power bar.

[baronrenfrew]

Oh Robbie, why do things the hard way when you can read the directions?
Down load them here http://www.gqfmfg.com/cabinet-instructions

My water container broke so I have a tupperware container in. Ok for chickens but a balance for hatching: you should raise humidity for hatching but not for incubating so if you are incubating and hatching at the same time I run the humidity the same all the time. So I hatch 80% instead of 90%, I can live with that.
Keep a logbook: month of year, outdoor temps etc. i find that eggs don't lose enough water as viewed when candled. My batches in March April i'll try running them dry. Last spring i was hatching 50% as they were retaining too much water.

Or run a separate machine for hatching. Good luck .

[Robbie]

Thanks Baron!! That makes it a lot easier!!
I didn't think to make a record of room temperature when I was hatching last year, I'll add that.
I'll try a week with no eggs, then I'd like to try a hatch . I'm going to need to find someone who wants some eggs hatched and will take all the chicks back for the first trial or two. The incubator has to be running perfectly by April. That gives me time for 2 trial hatches.

[thejonesboy]

Oh Robbie, I can only imagine how many birds you are going to have by summer :smile: I wouldn't worry about extra insulation, just go for it. Remember to count their toes after hatching :wink:

[Robbie]

Oh Robbie, I can only imagine how many birds you are going to have by summer :smile: I wouldn't worry about extra insulation, just go for it. Remember to count their toes after hatching :wink:

LOL- one of the reasons I decided against Dorking crosses!

[baronrenfrew]

I have a friend who runs 4 hovas for eggs: quail, chickens, ducks, guineas and she does so to better manage humidity for different species. She says that midsummer can be so humid that she gave up on summer hatches. I ran a hova for years in a damp basement without ever adding a drop of water to humidity trays with decent results. There was a thread on the old site about this and American summers vary greatly from bloody hor and humid (texas, florida) to bloody hot and dry (california, arizona) so incubator instructions are a "general rules" approach

[Robbie]

Baron do you know what the humidity was in the damp basement, and in the incbuator ?

[JimW]

Looks good Robbie best of luck. I have to clean up my new to me, very old Sportsman, and get it tested soon as well.

My current plan is to incubate in my sportsman and then move eggs at lockdown to my 2 hovabators to hatch, so I can incubate dry and then up humidity at lockdown, if I have eggs hatching at different times.

High humidity in my basement last summer had major negative effects on my hatch rate.

JimW

[Robbie]

I plan to hatch right in the incubator- I'm a bit of an "anything that can go wrong will go wrong" type of person - so if the incubator performs flawlessly the eggs are going to stay right there!
when I hatched before, I was a bit concerned how I was going to keep the humidity up for hatch, but it seems that once they start to hatch it's more of a problem how to keep the humidity down.
I plan on incubating at 50% humidity, lower than what's recommended by the university research muckeymucks.

[baronrenfrew]

I ran my sportsman in a "spare" bedroom (my home office) so I could close the door and manage the room temp with electric heat. Our house is heated with wood and windows are past due for replacement so temps can vary quite a bit between day and night. Incubators need a stable room temp (at least the hova's did). And since i now start the bator in March instead of May. Wood furnace is in the basement which makes the basement useless until we stop it in April.