Metal Halides and timers

[The Griffin]

Hi,
Do you need a superior timer for these, compared to your simple $10 "any store" timer?

Thanks,

Joe

 

[Frilleon]

Not really. But the cheap ones do tend to stop working a lot faster. My recomendation would be to buy a digital one. I have yet to have these stop working. I have six reptiles and a grow rack that rely on them. The few non-digital timers I had bought are all dead and gone and replaced with digital.

 

[Halt]

10 bucks is finee. mine was 7 fo 2 outputs

 

[The Griffin]

Digital....interesting.
I got the eight outlet multi-cycle timer that is NOT digital, and ...it does not seem to work.
It has four continous outlets and four on day/night timer. I was told to avoid the digital version of that.
I will look into it, thanks.

Joe

 

[Pyro]

Joe,

I use the 8 outlet strip you describe and the plain old $5 specials from Wal-Mart and both work fine.

 

[Frilleon]

Don't get me wrong they all will work. The experience I have had is that all the non-digital ones stop functioning properly rather fast. I have both single prong timers (grow rack) and the 8 prong day/night timers (lizards & fish tank). ALL non-digital timers for me have been replaced with concern for my reptiles and fish. Most of the time the dial stops working and are now expensive power strips. I still do use them for my plants. I have a 8 prong day/night digital time for my fish tank that I have not had one single problem with in over 2 years! The other nice thing about digital times is if the power goes out you will not mess up your programed times as most come with an internal battery.

 

[rattler]

Joe,

I use the 8 outlet strip you describe and the plain old $5 specials from Wal-Mart and both work fine.

basically what i use for my T8's....yeah the time is off if the power goes out but how much effort is there to spinning a dial?

 

[Frilleon]

basically what i use for my T8's....yeah the time is off if the power goes out but how much effort is there to spinning a dial?

Well for me it can be a while! I have 6 lizard cages and a fish tank. a grow rack with lights, 2 terrariums with lights and ultrasonic fogger. Not to mention the power stip is always in a hard to reach place!

 

[The Griffin]

Depends on what you did the night before...

Pyro, is it the exact one I described> Mine will not change for some reason so it's a 24hr light(Makes very burgundy pitchers though, lol) .

Cheers,

Joe

basically what i use for my T8's....yeah the time is off if the power goes out but how much effort is there to spinning a dial?

 

[Pyro]

Well for me it can be a while! I have 6 lizard cages and a fish tank. a grow rack with lights, 2 terrariums with lights and ultrasonic fogger. Not to mention the power stip is always in a hard to reach place!

10 snakes, 6 frogs, 2 day geckos, a hot box and 2 HID/MH systems All on timered strips some of which are 6 or 7 years old. And after a power outage it takes me all of 5 minutes to reset them all even with them being in hard to reach places.

Depends on what you did the night before...

Pyro, is it the exact one I described> Mine will not change for some reason so it's a 24hr light(Makes very burgundy pitchers though, lol) .

Cheers,

Joe

IDK if it is the exact one. Is yours the one with the 2 yellow outlets, 2 blue outlets and 4 white outlets where yellow is day on, blue is night on and white are constant on? If so then "yes" I have 5 of those, one of which is running the 400W HID in the highland area. The other 4 are on herps. All work well enough. The 1000W system in the sunroom is on a WallyWorld generic brand timer strip and has been since forever. It works fine too

 

[rattler]

Well for me it can be a while! I have 6 lizard cages and a fish tank. a grow rack with lights, 2 terrariums with lights and ultrasonic fogger. Not to mention the power stip is always in a hard to reach place!

mine is in an easy spot to reach on the wall........here are my thoughts on the dial timers versus the digital.......i have yet to have one of the dial ones fail....im sure it will happen at some point but at the moment ive got one that is about 6 years old and never had an issue......with my luck if i switch to a digital one the power is going to blink and the backup battery is gonna be dead cause i forgot to replace it and all the sudden while im gone for a 5 day vacation my plants will have no lights....with the dials sure the cycle may be off a couple hours and may not shut off till 1 am or some darn thing but atleast my plants will be getting their normal amount of light once the power kicks back on....course knowing my luck the dial one is going to fail as soon as i skip town aswell but the dial one has proven i can pretty well forget about them other than to spin the dial to the correct time when the power goes out....

i also dealt with the timer being in a PITA spot while at the old house.......wont do that again, ill run an extra cord so i can put it in an easy to reach spot before ill hide it again......

 

[The Griffin]

Pyro,
Yup, that would be the one.

Thanks,

Joe