IcarusZulu wrote: ... I see it's than same as the Tarantula Guy's that he has on YouTube. ...

I just tried finding Robc's version on YouTube, but gave up. There are too many videos to wade through! But, I wouldn't doubt it.

Al McKee of Seattle Washington (USA) developed the first one and published the construction details on a self-published booklet in 1986. Shortly thereafter we acquired a copy of that booklet, and a friend of ours, Mike Fostaty, made an incubator based on those instructions plus some suggestions that I had. Sometime thereafter I built my own prototype based on Mike's version, but mine looked like !@#$!. The year after TKG2 was published I made an identical pair of them that was effectively the same as my earlier prototype, but with close attention to its appearance, not just function. I then took the photos, wrote up the description, formatted it for easy printing, and sent the whole thing to the American Tarantula Society for publication. And, they apparently sold quite a few copies of the booklet. (That was the general idea. I never intended to get anything for it.)

Subsequently, there were some organizational changes at the ATS, and they stopped selling copies. It's taken several years to sort out the problem, but I finally got permission to offer it for free download because they had no intention of republishing it.

While I haven't spoken to Robc about it yet, he apparently acquired a copy of that little booklet, built a Mechanical Mom similar to ours, and uploaded a video about it on YouTube. If I pass through St. Louis, Missouri this fall, I'll make a date with him for a dinner and to see his tarantula room. We did so several years back. He's a good guy and has done a lot for the hobby.

IcarusZulu wrote: ... I did mention to him on YouTube that due to the cogs and wheels principal the number of sac rotations per Perspex / Timer revolutions is off.. I got flamed for that so did not reply. (I suppose he's one of those guys that knows better...) - (As long as it works that's what counts...). ...

Our version only turned the eggsac once a day, and it worked really well. There's really no reason to fiddle with changing the rotational speed. Once a day works fine.

IcarusZulu wrote: ... If I was making this is I'd make each Perspex holder larger and tilt the whole MM up at 30 - 45 degrees placing the Velcro on the round wall and leaning side wall unevenly spaced that way the eggsac will not rotate in one direction only, it will rotate more randomly as in nature. (This could also be done horizontal with the Velcro set at 45 degrees in a larger container). ...

Of course you can if you want to, but ours worked just fine without tilting, Velcro, or worrying about random rolling directions. We had virtually 100% hatches unless we had an attack of phorid flies (which happened twice!).


Enjoy your little 8-legged buddies!

There are now a bunch of artificial incubators described on the Internet. I presume all of them work, but I don't know for sure since I've neither spoken with their builders nor tried them myself. In the future, I wouldn't bother building one because the Nefcy Incubator apparently works just as well, is a lot simpler and cheaper, and a lot handier to use.

The principle reason I published the plans for the Mechanical Mom on the Internet was that a few people had asked where they might get them. And, since the ATS was no longer publishing them, I decided to do so myself. So, for those of you who want to build an automagic incubator that works really well, there it is.

Also, there are people who are trying to acquire copies of every publication from the arachnoculture hobby (sort of diminutive versions of the Smithsonian Museum or British Museum of Natural History) as a hobby unto itself. And, since this model is apparently one of the very first ones in existence, this affords them the opportunity to include a copy of this booklet too. After all, the fact that Robc uploaded a video of it affords it some level of importance, no? :laugh:

If any of you end up building one of these, could you either upload a video like Robc did? Or, at least post several photos of the construction process on this thread to sort of wrap it up for us? Many thanks.

Enjoy your little 8-legged fecundities!

20$ Mechanical Mom. R200.00 ZAR





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Now take an ice cream tub and cut a hole in the side big enough for the plastic part pf mechanic mom to fit through and put wet paper towels in it to up the humidity We used the same method

Thank you very much Uncle Stan

I am a great fan of yours and read your book quite often

Thank you for the download, I will make work of it

Thanks again