Diy digital 4 light controller with timer

In picture one, if you are looking at the actual plugs, you have white and black reversed. Black live, white neutral.

Looking at the back of the outlet, WHITE goes on the RIGHT. It will be labeled on the outlet. Otherwise it looks correct.

In regards to the 2nd picture, its pretty confusing to me, If you describe what you are working with (how many lights inc. wattages,controllers, time delays, thermal cutoffs and such), I can maybe better understand and maybe draw how I would do it.

Looking at it a little longer it makes more sense. I actually run currently 5000w with no startup delay. I don't know how I feel about cutting the lights to cut the heat, however it is an interesting Idea. I don't like the idea of turning off and turning on lights more often than necessary. Having to do it in the fluctuations of temp as you have labeled could make for that happening fairly often. I would put those temperature controls on fans associated with your lights.

My current issues are luckily not enough heat. I'm cooling 5000w with 1 inline fan, and still run a 1500w space heater.

I think these 2 little color updates make more sense in my brain.

yea i wasnt even thinking polarity when i drew that up. Im mocking up in visio what im going to do.
basically 240dryer -> timer -> 3 15amp CB. From each CB to time delay switch and then thermal cutoff and then socket/walljack.
and a 4th CB off the timer straight to 120v wall jack. And then one 120 wall jack outside the timer loop.
Youve done plenty for a late night. let me draw it up in something readable and you can poopoo it for me.

I think you are making things more complicated than needed. If I was going to up to 6000w I would consider time delay startups as well. But 2 would be plenty, and start up the lights 2000w at a time. If you are in a position that you have to cut off even 33% of your light to maintain temps, I would say you could remove some of the light, spend that initial startup money/utilities cost on climate control, and do better with yields overall. I dunno maybe I'll sing a different tune when I have to deal with a really hot summer, just my current perspective.

I dont anticipate any problems with heat. SoCal but its a concrete building in the shade. I have 3000watts in there now with no issues. theres AC. Im going to do a bit of overkill because it will look good and i like tinkering. And if shit hits the fan and the AC blows while im on vacation in the middle of August I wont come back to devastation.

I like the startup delay idea although I think im fine on amp draw even without. Another gadget to screw to the board though This isnt a startup Just the first time I've decided to mess with highvoltage. fucking Visio is complaining about 32/64bit issues... I work on broken PCs all day, i shouldnt have to fuck with mine.

I was actually looking into cooler light switches myself. I was thinking maybe a metal lamp toggle, or radio shack has some cool switches with LED notifications and such. As shit started getting more and more expensive, I started minimalizing as much as possible sacrificing cosmetically, without comprimising safety. With that in mind also I lost the need for a switch. Any decent timer even under $20 has all 3 settings. On/Off/Auto. I wouldn't trust my timings to anything cheaper.

I originally liked the built in digital timer, just sucks that it wouldn't turn on automatically after a power outage.

Because I had some left over 2-1 6g wire. I did a non dryer outlet, hard wired 50 amp 220 run. I split that run from the breaker to 2 different relays, and just made it all 220v. Just daisy chained the outlets, 2 outlets per relay, and plugged my relay cable into my 110v plug of my first relay. This allowed me to free up a ton of amps on my original 30 amp unit. I had more 110v stuff than I was expecting with space heaters/inline fans.

I had the same problem with a digital AC a few years ago. when the timer shut it off it would come back on at 80 degrees. wasnt very helpful. lol Traded it for a piece of crap manual one and it was perfect. I have central AC now so its all good there.

I like the look of circuit breakers is why i was thinking of using them as switches plus the benefit of popping if a ballast shorts or something and wont (shouldnt) take out the rest of the lights.
fyi visio isnt any more helpful than paint. Im trying publisher now

my setup .....I can add like 7000w or so if needed now. Pic1 is wired 50 amps. You'll notice I only use the CAP controller for my CO2. My dehum and space heater have built in thermo/humidistats. Also here is a site for a DIY type guy who makes these types of systems custom. You can look at his designs for ideas. I know he has built in breakers as switches on some of his designs. However I duno how you plan to wire the breakers as a switch without a seperate bus bar of some sort. I've tried out some of his designs. You'll notice however he used the digital timers that don't turn on automatically in the event of a power outage. It keeps a memory of the timing, but it doesn't check if it is supposed to be on or not when it first gets power restored. I haven't reevaluated the design on these in a while, but It looks like he used a subpanel breaker box for some of his designs. That way you could integrate the breakers as switches easily.

nice setup. I've never been a big fan of CAP stuff. Im building my own that I should have some pics of this weekend. I call it the GROdometer. Stay tuned.
whew. my wrist hurts. so something like this. i need to actually look at a CB because i dont think my wiring there is right but you get the drift. If I have the relay I should be able togeter done this weekend otherwise wait on the ups guy.. hell i might just run up to grainger if i have to.

Just had a thought about the time delays.. They are startup delays as well. Whether the power flickers or the timer cycles it will still delay startup. using one of these http://www.amazon.com/Delay-Break-Supco-Compressor-Protector/dp/B002JP6YSQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1311209833&sr=1-1 i can set them just a minute or 2 apart. yea, yea thatll work.

not sure how this cut/paste from excel will come out but I think this BOM will get the job done minus wire and connectors which i have.

got the site for my grodometer live. http://grodometer.com
made a Home Deport run today and got everything that doesnt need to be ordered. Should have some pics of the light controller unit soon.
thanks again for all the help.

Getting kinda complex for me. Gonna either need another contactor or a higher amperage for 6k watts total. I would probably go with multiple smaller, so you dont lose everything in the event of failure. I haven't had one go yet, but I imagine they do have some amount of limited life.

so what did we learn after our home depot run? 240 needs Double pole circuit breakers... You cant find any dual outlets rated at 240V... Grey outlet boxes cost a fortune so I'm going to pop the nails out of the blue things that cost 24 cents.
This is a little better diagram after ive now seen what the inside of a circuit breaker looks like. Also now have the time delays AFTER the thermal cutouts, duh. Good idea on dual contactors. Ill do that just for some redundancy although I just ordered one off ebay damnit! I think im ok on amps 4.1x6= 24.6. I dont know if thats the running load or the spike at statup but with the time delays they will only fire 2 at a time anyway.. I figure Ill set the delay timers to 1,3,5 minutes and the themal cutouts at 85-95-105 degrees.

anyway ive spent to much time and Im already at $300 today on this time to grab the bong and catch some Family Guy on the couch. Sorry to have hijacked your thread, sometimes I get a hair up my ass and get over excited ignore me if you must.

The relay needs to support the full load of the devices. Depending on if the lights run on 220 or 240, i never know for sure, so always use 220 to be safe. That means 5000 watts max per relay. I just cap at 4x 220 outlets, and add a few 110 outlets for fans and such. If you put all 6000 watts on 1 relay, you are not only pushing the limits, it leaves no room for fans or anything else you want timed.

A delay of 1-3-5 minutes is only useful for initial start. WIth your thermal cutouts, the delays are not big enough. You need probably minimum 15 minute delay or you will put insane strain on your bulbs.

roidrage152 said:

The relay needs to support the full load of the devices. Depending on if the lights run on 220 or 240, i never know for sure, so always use 220 to be safe. That means 5000 watts max per relay. I just cap at 4x 220 outlets, and add a few 110 outlets for fans and such. If you put all 6000 watts on 1 relay, you are not only pushing the limits, it leaves no room for fans or anything else you want timed.

A delay of 1-3-5 minutes is only useful for initial start. WIth your thermal cutouts, the delays are not big enough. You need probably minimum 15 minute delay or you will put insane strain on your bulbs.

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Im going to need a 4x8 sheet of plywood to mount all this crap
I decided I wanted a main cutoff switch and I cant find one like a frankenstein style big handle brass thing So a 70amp DP circuit breaker in its own loadcenter. then out to the 2 contactors.
Hmm 15 minute delays is kind of a pain in the ass. I guess Ill run a 12.25 hour light cycle to adjust. I wasnt sure how long they need to be off after being on. I dont expect the thermal cutouts to ever activate and we dont have power issues so the delays are just one more thing to put on the board Ill set them to 15/18/20 and run an extra 15mintes on the light cycle and then it will be like a quickly rising sun every morning as they come on.

so i finally got around to work on wiring it up. Next time Ill do just a little more research or go more step by step instead of pulling my usual buying spree impules... My delay on make and heat cutout timers are all single pole... So thats about $300 worth of shit to put on ebay. lol. Oh well. Ill see if I can finish wiring it this week without those and add them later. I dont see how you got yours so neat. Mine looks like a spider web. I should have gotten all braided wire and ran it in conduit. Ill post pics this week when I think it will work. Ill have a sparky friend give it his blessing before actually plugging it in. heheh

I don't use use the thermal cutouts/ or time delays. I used a dryer outlet for my first go at it, but I just hard wired my next one. I have my first contactor going into the timer, and my other contactors I plug into the 110v outlets of the first contactor. Now that I'm up to 6k watts it is kind of a mess of wires now. I don't see why you can't use the single pull items, and just wire them in a way to trigger your 2 pole items.

if you switch a single leg of a double pole circuit what happens? How would my ballasts like getting a half load? I gave it a quick thought but just didnt seem right.
Heres an old pic. I need to grab a new one. I have it all buttoned up and marked the sockets red for the 240s. Also put some danger signs on it. Havent actually plugged it in because I havent gotten my electrician buddy to sign off on it not killing me.

roidrage152 said:

-The 3 prong outlets I used on both the 110v and 220v sides are 20 amp rated

View attachment 2064031

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Not sure if you already know this but the only 20A receptacles you have are on the left and neither are 250V.

On the left you have 20A/125V NEMA 5-20R's.
On the right are 15A/125V NEMA 5-15R's.