I recently received an 8 tub hotbox incubator from Cserpents. I’ve set it up and tried to get it to temperature (89 degrees) but it won’t get past 86 and at times throughout the day drops as low as 82 but the night cycle is not on. I’ve tried bumping the set temps all the way up to 102, and I’ve tried cycling through the different heating modes on the thermostat giving them each at least 12 hours to get up to temp but the incubator remains in the 82-86 degree range. There are two empty tubs currently in the incubator. Anyone know whats going on here?
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I’ve not used the cserpents incubators, so forgive me if these are obvious questions.
Where is the thermostat probe at in the incubator?
What’s the ambient temps in the room that it’s in?
If I had to guess maybe the probe is too close to/on the heat tape, which wouldn’t allow the entire incubator to get up to temp.
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I am on the same page as @nswilkerson1 i have only used homemade ones and the old hovabator type myself. I would check the probe placement 1st as previously suggested. Also make sure it is not directly on a basement or bare floor, and check the heat tape or element for the entire length. Sounds to me if something is not wrong with the probe or thermostat that the heat source is not fully functioning? Good luck!
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I did some quick investigating on their site and it sounds like it heats air up in a chamber and then a fan blows it out the bottom of the incubator to recirculate it.
I think probe placement is going to be the biggest culprit.
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Not had that issue with my CSerpent incubator. It holds temp well. I place my probe on the center rack and use a thermostat with proportional heating. Is this unit new? I know I ordered a few racks from them and all of them came damaged with almost no refund. They do not pack there items very well in my experience. Def not ordering from them ever again. If it is new was the package or unit damaged at all?
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Have your probe in the middle of the incubator on pulsing.
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The probe is in the right place, that being the middle of the incubator however it’s on my bedroom floor. The ambient temperature in my room is 75 degrees. I will try moving it onto something thanks for the tips everyone!
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No, Ive ordered 5 racks from them over the course if 3 years and all were packaged extremely well with no damage and all in excellent condition. The incubator was purchased in January. Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with him.I’ve never had issues with Chris. He’s always responded to emails fast, answered any questions I had and pick up the phone.
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I guess I just had some bad luck with my racks. The incubator was packed well. Chris was also very responsive with me as well. Just was not happy with the “store credit” he gave me for the damaged racks. It is frustrating to pay that money and have damaged goods for the same price. Have since went with another company and very pleased with them. Had one item damged from them. Sent a pic of the damage and had a new item within 2 days.
Getting back to your topic with the heat… I have personally kept my incubator in my bedroom previously with ambient temps being around 72 and still incubator held my temps fine. The corners of the incubator were slightly below the set temp but the overall incubator stayed at set point. Sounds like the heat source in the incubator maybe the issue. Especially since you have said you have increased the thermostat temp and the incubator is still sitting around 85-86. I would not think it would be the thermostat. I can see it being off by a few degress. If you have a spare thermostat you can always try that to take it out of the picture on being the problem. Then working on process of elimination from there if the thermostat is not the issues.
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Is it possible that the fan is malfunctioning? Do you hear anything when it’s turned on?
You shouldn’t have an issue keeping the incubator at 89 with your ambient temps being 75. I kept my incubator last year in a room that was roughly 65 degrees without issue. This was a homemade incubator out of a drink cooler, but still.
As someone else has mentioned, make sure you can hear or determine if the fan is running. And is the probe at the back of the “middle”, truly right in the middle, front of the middle, etc. Where exactly is the probe? Pics would be helpful here.
If you want to see if its a thermostat issue, just simply run the heat without one. see how warm it can get. If it still doesn’t heat up, then you have some type of issue with the heating element itself. Otherwise if you can’t keep the heat in the incubator up, you could also try to add some full water bottles to the bottom level, this could function as an extra layer of insulation because the water will stay warm much longer than the air will.
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I am \ my daughter in the same boat as you. I picked up the Cserpents 24″ Incubator, around Nov 2022. The room I have it in this winter bounced between 70 - 75. I could never get it to heat over 82f.
No matter the probe placement I could not get it to reach a constant temp over 82. I thought maybe it was the VE-200 that came the incubator so I test it a few day with my Herpstat and even Freedom Breeder Thermostat and had same results .
I think the back heat tape that is being used just cannot push out the needed heat for a room that is below 80f.
When I had the room temps at 82 - 84 Then I could get the Cserpent to reach 87-88f.
My fix for the heating issue was to pickup a Zoo Med 11.5 foot Repti Heat Cable run it through the back probe whole and then line it up along the top and front door area of the incubator. I used my Herpstat 2 using both probes to regulate the temps. it took 4 days to dial in the temps using test egg boxes with remote temp reader.
BTW we placed a large nonstick pie pan at the bottom of the Incubator with water in it to help regulate temps at the bottom and also keep the Humidify up too.
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