A night of light. Quick Qs

Hey,

Being a student, I'm out of the house all the time, and my 400w HPS keeps busting the balls out of any timer I plug it into after about 4 days.

It's not cool.

I have bought three so far, all rated up to 3200w. Anyway, this isn't a rant about timers, it's an honest question.

As often as I can, the lights go on at 11pm and go off at 10am, 13hrs dark to kick flowering off. But, for many reasons, I'm often not in my house at those times. Just today, my light spent about 16hrs on, and the dark period now needs to be over night. The wrong way round.

Just how much bad is this doing? They seem way healthy and of the two I started with, one is female, the other was removed yesterday.

I could do with a little help finding a decent timer, and any thoughts on my bad light routine.

Thanks,
bath.bud

I use digital timers, that come with a backup battery supply, so that everything isn't reset during a power surge, power outage, whatever. I've never had an issue with my timers. Can't remember the brand name, but I found it at Lowe's, or a similar store.

Is your ballast causing the shorts in the timers? You should not be going through timers like that. If you're using a bunch of equipment, and are running everything through one timer, that might be your problem. Separate the equipment into more outlets, if you can. This should help to prevent huge power spikes from frying any one outlet.

It might be the ballast, I'm no electrician, but it is a little cracked... I have the timer in the wall, running out an extention that only powers the light. So, the only other configuration in my case would be plugging the timer into the extention. Think that'll help?

Perhaps digital is the way to go, too.

Any idea's as to reverting my light cycle back to its original state?

Cheers,
bath.bud

Okay, dumb question so forgive me... you are certain that the bulb and ballast are properly mated?
Is the extension cord rated to carry the amperage?
Amps is the number you need to know: Available on the circuit, transferrable through timer and cord, and required by the light. If the amps listed on the safety tag on the ballast housing are significantly less than the timer should be able to carry, either you are getting unlucky with a string of defective timers (have you tried different brands?), or there's an issue with your light.
This may be a red herring but how old is the bulb?

You can get an Intermatic digital timer at Lowe's for about US$15. ...and if your hps lamb burns it out they'll gladly exchange it for a new one.

PC :smokin:

Consistent light/dark cycles are what this stuff is all about. It will stress any plant, going into and out of flower.

1) Did you cut-off the 'ground' on the 3 prong plug, so it will fit the two prong timer? (can fry both timer, and ballast, but is a good way to check your fire sprinkler system)
2) Is the bulb securely screwed into the base? Recommend checking (while lamp has been off for a while) every once in a while.
3) Using a GFI?
4) Are you sure the timer is not just 'skipping' the red 'off' insert? I always use two red ones back-to-back on the dial, for just that reason. This works fine, on my cheap Intermatics timers.
5) And finally...do you keep buying the same timer, expecting different results?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PharmaCan

You can get an Intermatic digital timer at Lowe's for about US$15. ...and if your hps lamb burns it out they'll gladly exchange it for a new one.

PC :smokin:

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Yeah like he said get one thats is guarunteed

Cheers for all the help guys,
I live in the UK, so my lamp is earthed, down a massive power cable, no skinny flex here.

I haven't checked the ampage of the lamp, but the timer says 13amps, which is surely the same as any power coming from a uk socket?

Yes, the timers i bought were the same, because the only other ones I could find have 300w or lower ratings, not enough for my 400w bulb.

Will double check the lamp fitting, but I bought the whole set-up second hand, and guess what, it was cheap. No suprise it's come round to bite me in the ass.

Bath.Bud