Looking for the Electrical Gadget Master Among Us

[Michael Kadillak]

How about a greenhouse timer?

http://homeharvest.com/climatecontroltimers.htm

Thanks Henry. I would have never come up with this angle on my own.

[Brian C. Miller]

I have a Gralab 900. If you want to time something down to 1/10th of a second, you can do it with this unit. I bought mine on eBay. The timer can be set to loop through a set of timer entries, I think eight at most. Just enter the program, start it, and leave it.

[erie patsellis]

michael,
there are tons of industrial control relays that will do precisely that, they're relatively inexpensive used, try a ebay search for timer (possibly DIN timer). I may have a few here, I'll pm you if I find them.


erie

[Michael Kadillak]

michael,
there are tons of industrial control relays that will do precisely that, they're relatively inexpensive used, try a ebay search for timer (possibly DIN timer). I may have a few here, I'll pm you if I find them.


erie

Thanks Ernie

[Roger Krueger]

I'm with Eric--X10 seems like by far the cheapest and least complicated way of accomplishing this. Once you have an X10 you keep finding more stuff you want to hook into it.

[Keith Pitman]

Similar to a greenhouse timer would be an electronic lawn sprinkler timer. Otherwise, I'd look into the X10-computer controled option.

[Bob Jones]

Such things do exist. The industrial versions tend to be moderately expensive (>$100) but there are "hobbyist" devices that are pretty cheap.

I did a quick googling of "interval timer" and came up with these possibilities:

http://store.qkits.com/moreinfo.cfm/K8015

(with the function set to "interval timer", and use the learning mode to set the intervals) or

http://www.electronickits.com/kit/co...s/canck191.htm

(this one looks a bit more straightforward - you set the on time and delay with a small screwdriver).

These appear to be capable of turning on an AC load for an adjustable time, followed by an adjustable delay. It's not 100% clear to me that they continue to cycle, but your application is pretty easy to describe so a quick email should be all that's needed to be sure. Either one is available assembled for less than $30, but you might have to put the little PC board into an enclosure. There are probably a lot of other possibilities out there if you look around a bit.