Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That 1 hour timer is a bit simple. Surely someone makes a 240v one. I could use that to index my sequencer by turning the pump off for, say 1 minute every 15 minutes, or better still, find some sort or electric actuator or servo to operate a butterfly or ball valve to break the flow and not hammer the pump with all the switching.

Before I had to go another route I was looking into timers.
I was going to get it via my normal electrical distributor but this was high on my list.
2w power usage,
5A resistive contact, so roughly good for 1A pump otherwise use a relay to switch the pump.
24 to 230 VAC (50/60 Hz) or 24 to 48 vDC versions

Not suitable for use on an inverter output due to square wave.
Configurable on/off time repeating cycle. (0.1min to 1.2min, 1min to 12mins, 0.1hour to 1.2hours)
Separate times for on and off.

Australia would legally require a sparky to wire up.

This is the guts of the typical 24 hour timer most of us use! Sorry about the blurry pic.
Anyone willing to do a "Tim the Tool Man Taylor" on it and speed up the motor 24 times?
Make it do 1 rev per hour, not 1 per 24 hours!!

Could you piggy back that 40 minute ebay repeat timer into a standard cheapo 24 hour timer so it would run all day but shut off for a specific night time period?

I'm pretty sure it would be possible but I'm not really a supporter of shutting systems down overnight. The plants are fine overnight but the fish still need aeration and filtration unless the stocking is really low and temps chilly.

I got one of those 40 minute mechanical timers and It is running the pump feeding my indexing valve on my 300 gallon system. I've got it doing two pins off (up) and 10 pins on (down) which lines up perfectly with the number of pins doing 4 cycles in the 40 minutes and it just keeps repeating.

I'll try to remember to report back after I have had the timer running for a while to let you know if it is still working ok.

I think I'm going to get another one to hook up on the duck system too since I would like to run the pump for a shorter period of time than 15 minutes. Of course I could probably set the duck system up with a digital timer and not run it at night but that might leave the plants in the gravel bed/sump a bit water logged.

nice TCL, I thought that 1 hour timer would be handy with the spider valve. Lets hope they are reliable.

I expect it to be as reliable as any of the mechanical timers. Generally they seem ok so long as you don't leave them exposed to the blazing sun.

Of course they are inexpensive and I've had three cheap mechanical timers fail in the past 5 years.

Just showed that picture (of the internals of the timer I posted above) to a guy at one of the local big name elec stores.

After telling me he wasn't allowed to give advice on how to hack things like that, he then told me that the coil was a resistor , to which I told him "I don't think it is".

Then I pointed out what I thought might be the resistor, to which he then agreed (the pic wasn't all that clear) and went on to tell me that if I replaced that with a variable resistor, to which I said "ok getting technical now dude, but continue "

All I heard after that was blah blah blah blah.

Bloody lost me

Thought he wasn't allowed to offer advice like that!!!

Anyway, anyone see a safe way of changing the inline resistor so the coil will spin the motor faster? I'm thinking that the new timer TCL has something along these lines, or just a largerer gearing to spin the timer quicker? Other option would be to control the coil (motor) seperatly, away from the 240v.

I'm not going to be mucking around with 240volt, so don't worry my friends

You might contact the guy on e-bay who sells the 40 minute timer and ask if he can sell a version that would work for your voltage/power connections. Worst he might say is NO but he might also be able to get the parts and put together the version you need and if not, perhaps he will know who to put you in touch with who could help or sell you something.

Changing the resistor would just burn out the coil, all its there for is to stop too much current flow through it.
At a guess the coil is driving a one way ratchet that moves forward as the cycle of the AC passes at 50/60Hz.
If that is correct then the only way to modify it would to be to change the gearing.

40-minute EBay timer, three-prong grounded 110V version.
Timer motor died. Was running my pump on it for about a week.

Went out yesterday morning to feed and the pond water was not moving, usually it holds some momentum between pump cycles, also noticed there was practically no water returning from the growbed. Like it didn't come on overnight. Toggled the switch, power worked OK.
Manually moved the timer forward to the "On" tabs and the pump came on. Fed fish and went in to work.

Returned from work last night and the pond was down a few hundred gallons and the timer was still at the position I had bumped it to. So it ran for 8-9 hours at flow settings that were tweaked for 8 minutes on, 12 off...

The system is back on the 24-hour GE timer but I have not yet dissected or re-tested the little orange & green timer.

It was outside but raised and covered by a plastic tub - it was not wet. Humid though.
If it is likely to be the environment that did it in, one could use the timer indoors by timing a Rain Bird (etc.) transformer with it and running the low-voltage control wire outside to a Pump Start Relay box.

Oh and the fish are OK but they do not want to talk to me right now, pretty cramped and concentrated in there ATM.
10% top-offs with tap water will take a while to get it back up, COME ON RAIN!!!

Thanks for the update on the 40 minute timer Sminfiddle. Mine had been running fine until I broke it trying to take it apart to see how they modified it. I still didn't manage to get the thing apart either but it's broken now.
I've been back running on the GE outdoor 15 minute increment 24 hour timer too.

I actually have a couple more of those 40 minute timers coming, Since I'm running the duck power from inside the shed, I can probably just put the timer in there for the duck system. I really need to be able to run the pump in that one for shorter than 15 minutes. Hopefully the environment inside the shed will be better on the timer.

I've opened up several timers now trying to see if I can figure an easy way to adjust the gear box to allow for faster operation. So far I've not had much luck, I have been able to re-assemble two of the timers I took apart so they could work again as they were originally designed but so far I haven't managed the re-gearing.

My repeat cycle timer is still working but I find it easier in the long run to just buy a good quality one and save the headaches. Digital timer that has 2 outlets cost me $170.