Going on vacation have an idea, but i'm stumped on a solution

titycaca

titycaca

Active Member
I'm leaving my lovely ladies for a total of ten days maybe even eleven. I came up with a plan to just have a pump water the plants while I'm gone. I'm running soil btw :). I just have one major major issue. I water my plants every 5 days. So i don't know how i would set up a timer to run it every 5 days. I mean shit if I could do it every 4 days i Would do it, but my option only seems to be every 3rd day than 4 days later. Seeing how there is only 7 days in a week.

Does anyone know of a 2 week timer I've bee looking with no success or possibly a way to make this happen? Seriously any idea is helpful. Hope i'm missing a simple solution.

Thanks RIU crew:peace:
 
i never leave for more than 3 days! it kind of limits things but then again i get a bunch of free, high quality marijuana! :)
 
Here is what I did and it worked great -

I dropped a 460 gph pump into a 35 gallon trash can and hooked up a manifold with drip lines and drip sprinklers. The pump was plugged into a $20 digital timer than could turn on/off in increments of 1 minute. The real task is adjusting the individual sprinkler heads and adjusting the minutes per day and days per week to run the pump - once completed it works great.


IMG_0123.jpg
IMG_0140.jpg

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At first I tried running loops around the plants with perforated drip line but found it much more difficult to control the rate (and they tended to clog). The sprinklers however are easily adjustable and really just drip - 4xx gph pump isn't enough to spray water.

I think this is the key component you're looking for - hydrofarm dual outlet digital timer. Can have up to I think 12 settings, you can choose single days of the week, every other day..., increments of 1 minute on/off.


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Here's me out of town for 12 days:

Day I left:

IMG_0150.jpg


Day I came back (12 days later) -

IMG_0275.JPG


The next day after a good hand watering:

IMG_0284.JPG
 
A 2 week timer would most likely be a digital one, they do exist, i used to use em a lot, stick one onto the waste tap of a farm trough and then it just waters the gardens as required.

Another option which could involve a little bit of maths, would require multiple analogue timers. Basically a timer controlling a timer on a timer :D Basically you set the final one with the pump plugged into it to be on for however long you need it on for in order to water adequetly, and then you basically set the first timer to turn on for X hours, during these X hours the timer would pass power to the next timer which would be on for say Y hours, and so on. I would need pen and paper to work it out but essentially using some timers to slow down a timer by cutting it's power here and there :D complicated but it would swork :D
 
Gastanker said:
Here is what I did and it worked great -

I dropped a 460 gph pump into a 35 gallon trash can and hooked up a manifold with drip lines and drip sprinklers. The pump was plugged into a $20 digital timer than could turn on/off in increments of 1 minute. The real task is adjusting the individual sprinkler heads and adjusting the minutes per day and days per week to run the pump - once completed it works great.

This is what i was planning on doing was something like that :). I just have an issue with the time I can only run it every 5 days.
Click to expand...
 
tip top toker said:
A 2 week timer would most likely be a digital one, they do exist, i used to use em a lot, stick one onto the waste tap of a farm trough and then it just waters the gardens as required.

Another option which could involve a little bit of maths, would require multiple analogue timers. Basically a timer controlling a timer on a timer :D Basically you set the final one with the pump plugged into it to be on for however long you need it on for in order to water adequetly, and then you basically set the first timer to turn on for X hours, during these X hours the timer would pass power to the next timer which would be on for say Y hours, and so on. I would need pen and paper to work it out but essentially using some timers to slow down a timer by cutting it's power here and there :D complicated but it would swork :D
Click to expand...

Yeah i was thinking about that too :). My math brain was just hoping to not have to do that lol, but if it comes down to it I'm just going to do that. Or if you know ever where i can get a 2 week timer i would possibly make love to you.
 
Gastanker said:
Here is what I did and it worked great -

I dropped a 460 gph pump into a 35 gallon trash can and hooked up a manifold with drip lines and drip sprinklers. The pump was plugged into a $20 digital timer than could turn on/off in increments of 1 minute. The real task is adjusting the individual sprinkler heads and adjusting the minutes per day and days per week to run the pump - once completed it works great.

IMG_0284.JPG
Click to expand...

Dude nice fucking setup. My question is how often where you watering them with that system? If i read right did you say every day?
 
I had a wide range of pot size and the air pots dry up a bit faster than the regular post so I had to water every three days to make sure the smaller plants didn't dry up, to control how much each plant received I just adjusted the sprinkler heads - although the pump ran for the same amount of time every three days the larger plants received more water than the smaller plants. I sat with a measuring cup and measured how much water came out of each sprinkler head and adjusted as necessary.

The timer pictured can be set to run essentially whenever you want. You could have it water for 5 minutes every saturday, 10 mintues every monday, 16 minutes on tuesday, all at the same time... You'll bless yourself over and over again by picking up a digital timer over linking a bunch of mechanical timers. They even have internal batteries so if the power goes out your schedule doesn't get fucked up.
 
yeah i have one of those digital timers for my lights i love it. The way i water is i wait to about day 5 which is when the pot is completely dry and water all the way through even dumping excess run off water through it again just to make sure every bit of dirt is wet :). That is why i can't use a simply 3 day or 4 day watering technique or else i would be good to go. Unless someone can reassure me that watering within that time frame won't be to bad for the plant :).

The timing is my issue I have the idea of how to set up the watering system. Should of put some perlite in my soil.......
 
I was at lowes like an hour ago, they have digital timers that you can set for just about any increment. They are like $40 though if i remember right.. I cant promise that though lol i looked at a lot of timers.
 
Frawsti said:
I was at lowes like an hour ago, they have digital timers that you can set for just about any increment. They are like $40 though if i remember right.. I cant promise that though lol i looked at a lot of timers.
Click to expand...
yeah i saw those there.

See my issue is that those timers only have a 7 day schedual and i pretty much need a 2 week time. If I have it go on say monday. than wait five days it would start on friday, but it will only take two days for it to start back up on monday.

if worse comes to worse my plants are getting some extra water :)
 
titycaca said:
yeah i saw those there.

See my issue is that those timers only have a 7 day schedual and i pretty much need a 2 week time. If I have it go on say monday. than wait five days it would start on friday, but it will only take two days for it to start back up on monday.

if worse comes to worse my plants are getting some extra water :)
Click to expand...

Yeah...watering every 5 days isn't much of an option with those timers. Personally I would recommend watering less each time but more often when being out of town. If your power happened to flicker off, your pump didn't start up, pump didn't pump as much as supposed to or too much... can result in flooding your enclosure or missing a watering. If you miss 1 watering and you are going every 5 days than your plants will likely die, if you miss a watering but are watering every 3 days you can skip a watering with less harm.
 
Gastanker said:
Yeah...watering every 5 days isn't much of an option with those timers. Personally I would recommend watering less each time but more often when being out of town. If your power happened to flicker off, your pump didn't start up, pump didn't pump as much as supposed to or too much... can result in flooding your enclosure or missing a watering. If you miss 1 watering and you are going every 5 days than your plants will likely die, if you miss a watering but are watering every 3 days you can skip a watering with less harm.
Click to expand...

That is very true about missing a watering and doing it every three days is really my only options. Better to feed than not at all :)
 
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