INCUBATOR TERMINOLOGY - MATERIALS
HIGH DENSITY EXPANDED POLYSTYRENE
Incubators made out of this material have excellent insulation properties and consequently run on very low
wattages, making them extremely economical to run. They are also the cheapest to buy. Given reasonable care,
particularly when cleaning the base, incubators made from this material will give very good service. We have
many customers who have used polystyrene incubators for many years of successful hatching and if you do ruin
the base with over-enthusiastic cleaning, new bases are available at low cost. Plastic base liners are now available
for some of these models, which can easily be rinsed under the tap, preserving the main shell. Incubators of this
TION GUIDE
material are the Hovabator, Ecostat Economy 80 and Therbo Incubators.
EXPANDED STRUCTURAL POLYURETHANE
Not to be confused with polystyrene, this is an excellent incubator material combining the best of all worlds!
It has smooth, hard surfaces, excellent insulation properties, easily cleaned (scrubbable) and again results in
very low wattage, economical incubation. Probably the most practical type of incubator material on the market.
INCUBA
Incubators in this material are: the whole of the Brinsea range (except Octagon 10), the A.B. range and the
COVATUTTO 120.
MOULDED FIBRE GLASS
Very smooth surfaced with no seams and smooth corners, these cabinets are exceptionally hygienic, easy to
clean, robust and hardwearing. Most Masalles cabinets are made of this material and are double-skinned with
an insulating core.
PLASTIC / PLEXIGLASS / PERSPEX
“Plastic Box incubators” tend to be inexpensive to buy initially but in practice a) they are prone to “damage in
transit” and b) the thin plastic walls of the boxes mean that heat is lost from inside the incubator and the eggs
around the outer edges suffer from a chilling outside the incubator. To compensate, some makers fit a higher
wattage element and this results in a higher usage of water for humidity.
Some plastic incubators with specially made mouldings have overcome some of these problems such as the
Chicktec 12, Chicktec Smart, Chicktec 50, Octagon 10 and Octagon 20.
Plastic clear-top incubators are suitable for school use, and, generally speaking, plastic machines are easier to
clean.
WOOD
Wooden cabinet incubators are usually robust but they have their downside in cleanability because of joints.
Wooden cabinet incubators fitted with ultrasonic humidity should be avoided because of the way this otherwise
effective humidity system tends to make the wooden walls swell and become unserviceable.
FIBRE-GLASS FACED WOOD
These are very robust, good-looking incubators. Because of the materials used they are craftsman-made and
hand-assembled. The insulation properties fall somewhere in the middle of the range and they are certainly not
as economical to run as the polystyrene or polyurethane models. They will give years of service but have nooks
and crannies to hinder cleaning out.
OMNITHERM
This is Brinsea Products’ successful incubator heating technology using conductive printed ink (rather like a
heated rear screen on a car) on a flexible membrane which lines the whole incubation chamber providing very
even and gentle heating. Used in Brinsea’s Octagon range of incubators and the TLC4.
Tel: 01246 26 46 46 Fax: 01246 26 96 34 xi
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