Just venting: Oh and maybe some help too

[Kip22]

So I'm 5 weeks into bud with two white widow and two haze extreme/odyssey cross. Everything is going perfect dialed right in and starting tolook really good. Then I had to go away for a week for work. No prob I finally put together my water pump and tubing kit with drippers I've been trying to get around to. Threw it on a digital on/off timer set to water 3 days a week. Tested it at 2 min adjusted flow to get the proper soak. Should be good right?

Well nope. The fucking on off timer was at 12:00 when I got back and maybe watered once maybe not. The fucking thing just blanked itself out. There was no power outage but even then it should have been fine. Its been keeping time unplugged for over a month now on internal battery. Its currently in my neighbors yard or two over I don't know. I bought at the orange store. Don't buy that one.

Anyhow the two WW look good still. They didn't mind the hot dry spell but man the HazeX is looking scorched prolly done. What a shit deal.

I do have a question. Is there a decent interval timer on the amazon or somewhere else easy to order that you have found reliable? Something I could set to water every hour to every 2 days would be great!\

Thanks

Kip

 

[TurboBucket]

Basically every digital timer capable of minute intervals is a crap shoot. Some folks get lucky and they run forever, sometimes they die in a month. Century and woods are both big names in that arena but not everything they make lasts forever. I had a pair of centuries one lasted a month one ran for over a year and a half no issues. Crap shoot.

 

[Kip22]

Somebody must have found something good that works reliably? What about a more pro grade solution? I'd be willing to spend a few bucks not to see 3 months of effort in my garden all fucked and I bet others would too..... Obviously I don't have a huge garden but time is time plus the pride in producing quality buds.

 

[TurboBucket]

Any digital timer is more prone to failure than a mechanical. It's just the way they work. Unfortunately no one makes a mechanical timer that You can run minute adjustable intervals on a day by day selection. There are some interval timers for rack assemblies and control cabinets that are commercial/industrial grade and mechanical. But the best you can do with those are ex 2 minutes every 5 hours or every 20 hours etc.. not "water at 1:00pm 3:00pm and 5:00pm for 2 minutes Wednesday and Friday."

We're basically the only market for these types of timers in that level of quality so no one bothers to make them yet. Even when they do they will still have a higher failure rate than mechanicals. Just the nature of the Beast.

I use commerical grade mechanical timers for my lights but I still have to rely on a digital for my irrigation pump to get the day/time programming I want with minute intervals.

 

[Kip22]

What brand do you use? The nearpow ones on amazon get decent reviews.

 

[TurboBucket]

My digitals are "century heavy duty 7 day programmable" timers. It's the only one I've found that lets you control the two outlets independently. They're good as far as digitals go. A few other members here use them as well. You just have to keep an eye on them. With it being an irrigation pump a failure isn't quite as bad as with lighting but it still sucks.

 

[Gardener022]

Woods and Intermatic are pretty good timers.

 

[Calvados]

Somebody must have found something good that works reliably? What about a more pro grade solution? I'd be willing to spend a few bucks not to see 3 months of effort in my garden all fucked and I bet others would too..... Obviously I don't have a huge garden but time is time plus the pride in producing quality buds.

I use a Lumi 24hr Heavy Duty timer. It’s manual and very basic, but very robust. It works on a 24hr clock at 15 minute intervals. If you need coordinated timings, you would use 2 and sync them. They aren’t expensive, but I would be very surprised if it broke.

 

[TurboBucket]

I use a Lumi 24hr Heavy Duty timer. It’s manual and very basic. It works on a 24hr clock at 15 minute intervals. I would be very surprised if it broke.

Yes mechanicals are very reliable. The problem comes when you need to be able to adjust the interval in minute increments versus 15,30,45 minutes for example irrigation pumps, if I ran mine for 15 minutes it would be a waste, I only need three minutes of run time and I want it at certain times throughout the day, not every 30-90minutes .

I use intermatic brand timers for my lights

 

[Billpopy79]

I've been looking for something I could use that would reliably water my plants whilst I'm away
The best thing I could come up with was to use a smart WiFi socket adaptor.
If I rigged it up alongside my WiFi camera I could activate and deactivate watering and even watch the plants whilst watering.
All this could be done using my phone from anywhere in the world.