nl when my plants are vegging I just use the drip rings that come with each w/f and we run it 24/0.....its ALWAYS dripping so no timer needed. The only time we run it differently is perhaps the first few days after putting in a new seedling.

We've tried some different techniques in bloom.......DWC with GOOD sized air wands and a commercial air pump that does the job extremely well and that part is standard in bloom. HOWEVER......we've run out of electrical outlets in our grow space and short of adding more and more extension cords (or getting a SAFE electrician in to add another fuse box or whatever they need to do which we haven't been able to do yet) at this point we are going back on forth on the drip ring part in flower since the rez is well oxygenated.

SO......the last few grows we have discontinued the drip ring part in bloom and gone strictly DWC BUT we think it may be part of what is affecting our poorer-than-aimed-for-yield estimates so a couple of plants we're growing right now we've deliberately (ie:another extension cord) made sure to keep the drip rings running through bloom 24/7 as well.
We're not sure if turning off the drip ring and switching to strictly DWC affects final yield but we'll get some sort of clue this go round as we have several on 24/7 drip ring AND good areation running 24/7 in their individual buckets as well.

My personal thought is the plant would grow better with constant drip ring action vs just "wicking" up needed nutes but the electrical situation has made it impossible to know for sure.