In the nest, hens routinely nudge chicken eggs around in the first 18 (or so) of the 21 days it takes them to hatch. They do this at odd intervals with no specific timing or pattern. People who hatch eggs have found that this movement prevents the embryo from sticking to one side of the shell, and failing to hatch. The consensus is that if eggs are moved around three or four times each day, the hatch rate improves. In small incubators without built-in turners, the eggs are laid on their side and marked with an "X" on one side and an "O" on the other side. Then, every six to eight hours, the incubator is opened and the eggs are hand turned 180 degrees so that if the X was up, now the O is up and vice-versa.
Then, someone discovered that a rocking motion would also work, and the automatic egg-turner was invented (even though it didn't really turn the eggs, it just rocked them.) That is what the OP is trying to accomplish, i.e., a device which will slowly rock the eggs back and forth approximately 45 degrees on each side of center, making three or four complete circuits every 24 hours. It doesn't matter if the rocking motion is continuous or occurs in stages, so long as the eggs are not shaken, or allowed to roll around and be broken. There have been many methods of doing this, but the most common uses a gear-hear motor and a lever to continuously rock the tray(s) very slowly back and forth.
ETA: Yes, I have hatched eggs in my own home-built incubator with my own home-built turner (which, BTW, does not use a gear-head motor or a rocking motion.)
ETA again: The mechanism in the video is unnecessarily complex, and was built by someone who didn't understand hatching eggs, or got carried away with the design process ("feature creep" is what we used to call it.)
Then, someone discovered that a rocking motion would also work, and the automatic egg-turner was invented (even though it didn't really turn the eggs, it just rocked them.) That is what the OP is trying to accomplish, i.e., a device which will slowly rock the eggs back and forth approximately 45 degrees on each side of center, making three or four complete circuits every 24 hours. It doesn't matter if the rocking motion is continuous or occurs in stages, so long as the eggs are not shaken, or allowed to roll around and be broken. There have been many methods of doing this, but the most common uses a gear-hear motor and a lever to continuously rock the tray(s) very slowly back and forth.
ETA: Yes, I have hatched eggs in my own home-built incubator with my own home-built turner (which, BTW, does not use a gear-head motor or a rocking motion.)
ETA again: The mechanism in the video is unnecessarily complex, and was built by someone who didn't understand hatching eggs, or got carried away with the design process ("feature creep" is what we used to call it.)
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