Aliases used by other developers include Moonrat, Rice MiniCubator, and Rice Petri FI.
MoonratII is the development effort of 2023.
Visit the Legacy folder (above) for the work of volunteers prior to 2023 and the hand built prototype.

The MoonRatII team has produced five Printed Circuit Assemblies (Control and Heater) of the Rev 1 PWB for use by the USA team.
The MoonRatII team has produced five Printed Circuit Assemblies (Control and Heater) of the Rev 2 PWB for use by Mexico team. Enclosure design for the Controller Assembly is underway. Rev 3 PWB TBA.

In one schematic and PCB, we have developed a "Control Assembly" and a "Heater Assembly".
The Control Assembly will be in an enclosure detachable from the incubation chamber.
The Heater Assembly will be mounted internal to the incubation assembly and in addition to providing current to a heating pad or pads has a PCB mounted temperature sensor.
A third component, a rechargeable battery with its recharging station, will complete a MoonRatII incubator system.

The connections from the controller to the heater needs only 6 wires:

1. GND (ground, nominally voltage 0.)
2. +12V PWR (the heating elements requires approximately 12V power.)
3. HEAT ON (Vin)
4. +5V (for the thermometer).
5. SIG -- data from the digital "one-wire" format
6. UNK - a final wire is included for future functionality that is unknown right now. It is connected as a redundant ground in Rev 1 and Rev 2.

These (esp. the power) should probably be rated for 2 amps, but in practice 1 amp is probably good enough.

From the 2020 design.

Basic Structure of Portable Incubator (1)

By building a small, portable, intelligent incubator that can maintain constant elevated temperature, a variety of biological experiments and assays can be performed "in the field" without having access to a electric grid power.

This is an offshoot of the Rapid E. coli project. It is an attempt to build a better, smaller, more intelligent portable incubator that the Armadillo, described elsewhere and buildable from an instructable.

1. Petrifilms: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/ECOLICT-3M-Petrifilm-E-coli-Coliform-Count-Plates/?N=5002385+3293785155&rt=rud
2. EPA Guidelines: https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-11/documents/drinking_water_sample_collection.pdf
3. Original Incubator Paper - http://jhe.ewb.org.au/index.php/jhe/article/view/127
4. Construction of a Low-cost Mobile Incubator for Field and Laboratory Use https://www.jove.com/t/58443/construction-low-cost-mobile-incubator-for-field-laboratory
5. Solar Powered Portable Culture Incubator https://www.jscimedcentral.com/Pediatrics/pediatrics-3-1063.pdf

Thanks to Dr. Sabia Abidi of Rice University for input and references.

Melanie Laporte

Silvia Castillas

Harshit Kumar

Enrique Ruiz

Horacio Garcia

F. Lee Erickson

Robert L. Read of Public Invention