Chook Me!

Is it possible to construct a chicken egg incubator run by a car battery?

I have to create an egg incubator that can't be run by electricity, but can use a car battery instead. Is this even possible? Incubation period is 21 days, so would a car battery be enough? Also, any links to something like this? This is an apocalypse project, so I can't use electricity, and hypothetically, cars still exist, but gasoline doesn't. So I can only use a car battery..on one charge?

Public Comments

1. Very simple. Get a few 12V car light bulbs then light it up with car battery. Car head light can provide 120W heat power or more. A fully charged car battery 85AH can support 120W about eight hours.
2. It can be done by carefull selection of parts, and mostly by having a well sealed and insulated chamber for the egg to stay in. Keep in mind the more you open the door the more heat escapes too; so maybe some glove-box design could be suggested as an improvement.
3. I'm confused, use a battery without electricity? Perhaps you mean without "mains" or "hydro", the electricity delivered to your house from a generating station. Batteries produce electricity, so if you must use the battery without it's electrical properties, then you are pretty much limited to "non-conventional" uses. In that case, I would carefully extract the battery's acid, and pour it on sugar, in controlled quantities. Under the right conditions, this will generate heat. If this heat was near enough to an egg, it could keep it warm. If you are allowed to use the electricity in the battery, but not from the wall, then it's just a matter of finding a resistor or incandescent bulb of the right wattage to heat up. If you know the mass of the egg, the ideal temperature of the egg, the specific heat capacity of the egg, the specific heat capacity of the egg's container, the thermal insulation factor of the container, and the ambient air temperature, and the Ampere-hours of the battery, you could calculate how long the system would maintain the correct temperature.
4. Your incubator needs to have excellent insulation. 120 watts is too much, but 3 watts may not be enough if the outside temperature is very cold. You can get a thermostat from a wrecked house, and set it to maximum about 90 degrees. If the thermostat is under the eggs, the eggs will get a bit warmer. I'm guessing low 90s is the best temperature. Connect the smallest, dimmest 12 or 24 volt bulb you can find to the thermostat and the biggest truck battery you can find, all in series. Big trucks have 24 volt bulbs,and usually two 12 volt batteries in series. Car batteries are usually about 60 amp hours, but a big one will be about 100 amp hours, so the battery will run down in about 400 hours at 3 watts which is 1/4 amp, sooner if it was not fully charged and in like new condition. For 21 days a 150 watt resistor rated 2 watts, but heating at one watt has a good shot at the 504 hours = 21 days, but that likely is not warm enough. Any chance you can use 3 resistors and 3 batteries? Only one should be connected to the thermostat, as 3 would be pushing your luck on the thermostat's contact ratings. On hot afternoons, if any, you should disconnect the two extra batteries for a few hours, to be sure you don't over heat the eggs. 100 ohm, 2 watt resistors will likely be better, if it is very cold. A possible problem is there will not be enough air in a very well insulated incubator after the chicks hatch, and the chicks need to be kept warm if it is cold. Keep in mind that eggs from a grocery store are typically infertile = won't hatch. Neil