Top 5 Features to Look for in a High-Quality Refrigerated Incubator

Refrigerated incubators keep samples at a constant cold temperature to promote or prevent growth in cells and tissue cultures. They’re perfect for plant and insect germination, bacteria culturing, BOD testing, and other low-temperature work.

Look for a refrigerated incubator with rounded interior surfaces that make sterilization easier. Also, choose one with observation windows and forced air convection, which optimize heat transfer and reduce temperature fluctuations.

Temperature Sensors

A quality lab incubator will have temperature sensors that ensure accurate and consistent readings. This is particularly important if you plan to incubate reptile eggs or other species that require exact temperatures.

Look for a digital on/off thermostat with slightly better accuracy than analog units. Some incubators even offer a pulse-proportional thermostat that automatically adjusts to changes in ambient temperature.

Moreover, a high-quality refrigerated incubator is essential for precise and consistent temperature-controlled environments, ensuring optimal scientific research and experimentation conditions.

It’s also a good idea to have a high-quality hygrometer. Hygrometers allow you to monitor humidity levels to maintain a healthy environment for your culture. While many hygrometers are digital, you can also find affordable analog models to do the job. Just make sure your hygrometer is easy to read and has a fast response time. This will reduce the time you’ll spend opening and closing the incubator.

Humidity Control

Humidity control is the ability to control the air’s moisture. Humidity significantly impacts everything from wood rot, viruses, mold, mildew, radon production, and how hot or cold you feel in the house.

To control humidity, you can use a dehumidifier to remove moisture from the air or a humidifier to add water. There are also whole-home humidity control systems that can be integrated into your home’s HVAC system to monitor & automatically adjust your relative humidity level.

Using a digital thermometer/hygrometer combo is another inexpensive option for monitoring conditions in your incubator. Most models even keep track of high & low temperatures, which can be helpful. For the DIYers, heat tape is a quick & affordable way to control humidity, although you will need to drill holes to attach it to your egg containers & incubator.

Observation Windows

Incubators that have a large observation window make it easy to keep an eye on your samples. Incubators without windows often require you to open the door periodically for oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange, disrupting the incubator’s temperature stability. To avoid this issue, look for an incubator with a transparent door or a clear plastic cover.Add New Post

Some advanced incubators come with a fan that steadily circulates warmed air, known as forced air. This eliminates hot or cold spots within the incubator, which can cause fertilized eggs to hatch unevenly.

Some incubators have a separate heat-only chamber that lets you control the temperature and humidity with one unit. This is useful for applications like growing tortoise eggs, where a high degree of moisture is required.

Forced Air Convection

Incubator manufacturers utilize different methods for preventing airflow around containers inside the incubator. Some rely on natural convection, which involves fluid movement due to temperature and density gradients.

Others use forced convection, which requires artificially induced fluid movement through fans or pumps. Both methods help maintain a more even temperature throughout the entire incubator.

In addition, a well-sealed incubator prevents cold spots from forming, making it much easier to get a good reading from the thermostat’s dial. This can be done by coating the outside of the container in aquarium-grade silicone.

In addition, this science incubator provides a controlled setting for nurturing experiments and research, fostering an environment conducive to scientific exploration and discovery.

Laboratory incubators (chilling incubators) are vital in conducting BOD determinations, biochemical oxygen demand tests, and other water pollution testing. They can also be used for bacterial culturing and other laboratory research applications.

Energy Efficiency

Insulation is vital to keeping a consistent temperature in any incubator. We’ve seen people use plastic fine chicken fencing, dish racks & even those little metal wire shoe organizers to help keep the heat in a refrigerator incubator. We recommend a full-coverage polyurethane insulation for best results.

Programmable refrigerated incubators provide a broad temperature range control with superior chamber uniformity. This is perfect for food & beverage quality assurance testing, fermentation, microorganism cultures & more.

Microprocessor-controlled PID heater with compressor on/off system enables precision temperature control, while fan circulation optimizes temperature uniformity. Alarms for power failure, sensor error & door ajar prevent loss of samples. These models have a built-in backup battery to display the temperature and operate the audible alarms for up to 72 hours in case of a power outage.