Motherfucking Timers

[ConvexConepiece]

Personally I use the HPM digital ones from bunnings which go for ~$15. I run 2, one for light one for waterpump and have not had a problem since I bought them about a year ago. The battery backup is handy to not lose your settings and the batteries are even included .

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

Al.B has a good point with the way the crap is being churned out at Bunnings, and at the same time smaller hardwear shops are going out of business.

 

I know it's alittle off topic with the timers to be specific, but the same things has happened with fishing tackle shops and BCf and companies similar. They're owned by Super Cheap and run on a policy of what sells to "mr. average", and base their entire sales range on bulk purchases of materials suited to the low end average user who wants the cheapest and quickest way out of a thing.

 

So BCF for example have sent many, many fishing tackle shops to the wall, just a couple left around the place now. So you have litttle choice but to use BCf. But if you need something specific, say a rod blank of a certain calibre they don't carry, high quality gear of virtually any kind, they tell you fuck off and maybe you can consider this latests chinese "combo pack" ideal for the clown on a weekened bltz...

 

We used to pay a little more to have smaller tackle outlets, but could order quality as we required, rods and spefic items that suited personal needs, but now it's getting harder to damn near impossible. Same thing happening with Bunnings, and in time if the buggers get the market share they are after, you wont get anything but cheap chinese crap, because the hardwear shop you bought the good quality job last year at is closed down..squeezed out of exiistence.

 

it's worth considering supporting your local smaller outlets for everything. Or we'll have nothing but super-stores and crap to buy, and where will we be when we want better quality then?

 

Thanks everyone for the input on timers. I hardly use them anymore because I'm home all the time. I don't trust them and like Al.B said, we use them to automate everything, but what's the point if you have to go in and check every time the bloody thing is supposed to have worked?

 

I'll try and get good quality ones this time; now that I've read this and have some brand names to go by.. I saw some beauts at a hydro shop once. Until then, I'll do it by hand.

 

cheers

rob

[Al B. Fuct]

why wouldn't you just plug a power board into the timer and run off that? helluva lot cheaper than 4 or 5 timers, and easier to check.

 

2 reasons- Not all my pumps are the same capacity and take differing amts of time to flood each tray- and I decided it's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. If I ran all pumps on one timer, should that one timer shit itself, nothing gets watered.

[Al B. Fuct]

I hardly use them anymore because I'm home all the time.

 

c'mon Rob- we're all stoners here. We forget to do shit all the time! If I didn't have short-term memory problems, I'd think I was growing shitty dope!

 

Timers work MOST of the time. If you run one for a cpl weeks with no failures, you can probably overlook it for a day.

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

I suppose it's just the compulsive behaviour in me. I check the kids many times a night (one is 18 years old), check the door locks, the stove is switched off...I had it under control for the last 8 years or so, but just the last couple years it seems to be getting bad again. i can't rely on ANYTHING as final.

 

I used to live with a driveway that is a kilometer long, and rough as all hell. It wasn't unusual for me to come home, open the cattle gate, drive in, stop the car and get out to close the gate behind me...normal stuff there right? By the time I got to the house, I would frequentl;y turn the car around and drive back, sure I left the gate open. After two years of this, every time my wife assuringme I had closed it, and never once having discovered I had left it opened, I was still doing it. The gate, ...not every single time. It was such a definate act. getting in and out of the car..and so far back, I'd wrack my brains to recall if I closed it or not...but other things...man o man..

 

I think they called it compulsive repetative bahviour or somthing. I would turn the gas off at the stove, then go outside to the big bottles at bed time and turn it off there. In winter it was often below zero celcius.. Fine, better safe than sorry and the gas in bush houses is always amateur jobs, so they could be faulty. But I would do that a dozen times a night. I'd check the kids when i went to bed, then I'd hardly hit the pillow and be sprung up again like a mousetrap, wondering if their windows were closed. (we didnt have locks on any doors, so why would u worry about the windows being locked miles from the cloest neighbor and miles off the closest road of any significance?

 

So if you can bend ya head around that kind of compulsiveness, with things that NEVER go wrong, can you imagine what things like a timer might do to my mind ?

Serious, i can't let them rest, gotta check them every time they're suppose to go on..

To be honest, I do manage to live with the watering timers. I just never remeber to be present when tey're supposed to go on and off, so I have come to terms I can't be there for that one.., but I check them every day at least once by how wet the medium is compared to when the last watering ought to have worked (that's likely to be normal). But lights? I've been so driven mad by the way they can miss..I just gave up, and went to hand control.

 

Like I siad, with the name of some decent sounding ones, and prepared to spend a little more on this grow, I'll try some better quality ones. In the past few years I've hardly left the house for health reasons, but I got the chance to join the ABT fishing tour this year, so hopefully I wont be here some weekends to check them. I better learn to live with timers again I suppose.

 

I'd kill for short term memory loss Al.B. don't under-rate it. I mean my mind is so cranked up all the time, it's like it never stops. I just spent another sleepless night, droppedd off just on sunrise, unable to stop thinking ...that's every night now for as long as I've quit the heavy amounts of opiates..Then agauin, I wonder if what I have is real bad short term memory loss? I mean I do a "round", which is to say I would check the stove, go outside do the gas bottle, come inside and check the power points have no paper around hem incase a flash from a power spike lit one up, check each child seperately, even if they shared a room. First check they are breathing by leaning over them closely and listening/lookingat their chest rising and falling, then check their windows. I'd lay down in bed after all this, and no exageration what-so-ever, I'd lay for no more than 1 minute and ask Karen "did I check the gas?"

She'd be prepared for the inevitable question..with "yes darling, you checked it"

But up again i'd be, without hesitation, and do the whole fuckin round again...

 

maybe I have the shortest memory in the world?

 

Actually, there's nothing funny about it. it has nearly sent me crazy at times.

 

 

 

Anyway, 'nuff about the fun in my life..

 

rob

 

Ps. Al.B. those timers from Bunnings you tried, could you program each power point on the board to different times? Or did everything in the board come on and off at the one time ? I know you said they're crap, I'm just wondering how they shouild have worked in principle.

I saw a timer board (two timers) at a hydro shop once. they wanted a couple hundred for it. It was meant to handle huge amps. I was under the impresion you had to spend that big to get a relaible timer.

[ConvexConepiece]

Rob, your to the bone truth telling has really opened my mind up to what goes on in the mind of a compulsive checker... well done mate I really feel for you and can't imagine the havoc it must cause in your life.... but then again its better than say alzheimers and forgetting important things!

 

From what I know there is 2 types of compulsive behaviour - the chekers (such as yourself), and the cleaners (the germ and/or neat freaks who wash their hands etc to the point where skin hangs off them)....

 

Anyway were getting a wee offtopic here, to update on my HPM digital recommendation, I just discovered that my water pump timer had erased its memory for some unknown reason... batteries were still in and still work fine... but it had lost all of its presets and wasnt watering the plants - and im not sure just how long its been like this! luckily my setup is somewhat a hybrid dwc/drip feed recirc system so the roots are sitting in the res.... Ill have to keep an eye on that timer!

[Al B. Fuct]

Ps. Al.B. those timers from Bunnings you tried, could you program each power point on the board to different times? Or did everything in the board come on and off at the one time ? I know you said they're crap, I'm just wondering how they shouild have worked in principle.

 

The Heller timer/powerboard was effectively 4 separate timers in one box.

 

If the thing would have worked reliably, it would have been great. My sample size may be too small to make any overarching generalisation about the things, but if I got a bad one, someone else will, too.

 

In certain applications, like running water pumps in a flood op, a failure quite obviously can be big-time bad news. Just on general principles, it's better in this case to run individual timers to spread out the results of a failure of a timer- or lever your OCD and just check them 87 times a day!

[bmwdude]

These are $25 at bunnings

 

 

Heaps of settings, have only been using it a little while so don't know if reliable, seems ok though.

Had the same one for over a year.......absolutely and positively brilliant!!!

Bitch to figure out while ur high (so must take mental note to be straight) as the are pretty complicated.

from memory they will take 15 amps!!! so easily handle a 2x1000 hps plus fans etc on one board PLUS

they have 5 different setting for all 5 different outlets......love em to death

[Al B. Fuct]

Bitch to figure out while ur high (so must take mental note to be straight) as the are pretty complicated.

from memory they will take 15 amps!!! so easily handle a 2x1000 hps plus fans etc on one board PLUS

they have 5 different setting for all 5 different outlets......love em to death

 

I agree that the instructions with that timer were nearly gibberish. Chinglish figured prominently if I recall correctly.

 

Check that current rating. I think the relay contacts for each outlet are rated 10A @ 240V and probably has a 10A ckt bkr for the whole thing.

 

A 1000HPS on 240 will draw ~4.6A while warmed up and running but will use about 6-7A for about 5-10 sec when striking and warming up. You can get away with 2x 1000HPS on this unit without tripping their ckt bkr if you stagger the start times by a couple of minutes.

 

I prefer not to run continuous loads on wiring in excess of 80% of the current rating i.e. no more than 8A on a 10A power board. It won't necessarily be dangerous to load a 10A panel with 9.2A continuously, but the bkr may nuisance-trip on you if there's any line voltage glitches which cause current to momentarily spike.

[Hector]

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