Egg Hatching Incubator Using Conveyor Rotation System

Abstract

The present study aims to design and develop a force air system of eggs incubator to incubate various types of eggs through a conveyor rotating system. This incubator was equipped with temperature and humidity sensors to measure and control the condition in the incubator. The incubator body was fabricated by stainless steel that provides less bacterial cross contamination between the incubator and the hatched chicks. It was designed to automatically change the parameters to the suitable condition to fit the various types of eggs. Direct current geared motor with low speed was used to rotate chained steel mat at the bottom and automatically change the position of egg to avoid the embryo sticks onto the shell. The entire elements were controlled by microcontroller devices to process the data from sensors and execute the control element of the machine. LabVIEW system was applied for temperature and humidity data recording. The evaluation of the shaft for egg turning system was analysed. The safety factor was determined at 5.88 by manual calculation and 9.6 by software simulation respectively. This indicated that the safety factor of the shaft has achieved the required standard which must be higher than 0.99. The test run experiment on quail eggs, showed the stable temperature in incubation chamber of 37.5 oC and 49.86% of relatively humidity (RH) were achieved. Therefore, the usage of conveyor instead of turning 45o for eggs rotation system has shown the potential to replicate natural hatching and produce higher hatching rate of 94.17%. This machine also provides an accurate temperature and humidity condition in the incubator as well as less bacterial cross contamination.