Every week I give myself a deadline to finish off the incubator and every week I’m remarking on how everything always takes longer then expected. I finally decided to use a shield that was made especially for the BHA incubator hack, to save time on worrying about how to solder the electronics correctly on a PCB. I did ask for advice in the electronics hour about where to start on a PCB

• First start with doing the ground / negative one side of the board and the positive the other side
• Then begin with the main components , like thermo, heating pad , screen etc

I had a few problems while adding my electronics to the shield thought - my thermometer is a digital and the shield has been made for an analog one. I thought I had figured out a solution but still having an issue with getting any temp reading and the heating pad isn’t working - these were all working before i made the transition to the shield. I believe there may be a problem in the actual shield, like a damaged MOSFET but I have spent enough time on trying to get it to work!

I have put it to one side now and focussing my time on spending the last few weeks in the lab as I feel I can trouble shoot the issues when I return to London.

I think that I will need to find a way to put the grow lights inside the incubator because the polycarbonate I’m using, which is for green houses, actually doesn’t allow much light to past through - ha, I knew this material was good for this, but didn’t think it through very well in terms of were the light will be coming from!