Category Archives: timers

REUK Super Timer with Light Detector Override

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Pictured below is a new device which mixes the features of the REUK Super Timer 3 and the REUK Dawn/Dusk Lighting Controller.

REUK Super Timer with light detector overrideThe timer can be programmed with different ON and OFF time durations from 1 second to 99 hours with various modes of operation available. When the time is ON, there is a 12V output (rated at up to 1A) which can be used to control up to 10-12 Watts of 12V devices, or used to switch a relay if higher currents or different voltages are to be switched.

The modification is the addition of a light detector (light dependent resistor) which is used to override the timer at night time. When the ambient light level is measured to be less than the user set threshold, then when the timer is ‘ON’ the output remains off.

This particular board is for an automatic fish feeder which directly drives a small motor, and the override is to prevent the feeder operating at night.

If you need a timer similar to this, email neil@reuk.co.uk with details of your exact requirements.

Accurate Programmable Solenoid Timer

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Pictured below is a timer which we made today – designed to energise a solenoid valve for a user-programmable duration after the on board button is pressed.

accurate user programmable timer

In our article Making Very Accurate Timers we looked at some ways in which accurate timers can be made – much more accurate than timer circuits based around 4060B counters and 555 ICs for example.

For this timer though since the accuracy required was +/-1 second in five minutes, we just used a microcontroller (PICAXE), making it much easier to set things up to enable user programming of the timer.

The common way to make such a timer is to have it run for a given number of seconds, and repeatedly call pause 1000 which makes the circuit wait for 1000ms (=1 second). The timing accuracy of microcontroller without external clock crystals can be quite poor, but they tend to be consistent.

Therefore to calibrate the timer we simply set it to run for 30 minutes, measured how long it actually took using a stopwatch (which turned out to be 10 seconds less than 30 minutes (so 1790 seconds instead of 1800). As it was therefore fast by 100*(1800/1790)-100 = 0.558%, we increased the 1000ms pause by 0.588% giving 1006 of the microcontroller milliseconds for 1000 real milliseconds. This slowed the timer down a fraction giving it the required accuracy.

For user programming, the button is used to set first the number of minutes the timer is to run, and then the number of seconds (in 10 second steps). The entered minutes and seconds value is then stored in memory and the timer runs for that time whenever the user subsequently pressed the button to turn on the output.

Project of the Day – Drifting Radio Buoy Timer

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In addition to our user programmable REUK Super TImer and Super Timer 2 products we make a large number of other timers to order specific to the needs of individual projects.

drifting buoy timer

Today we put together a timer for a very interesting project – a drifting buoy designed to measure various metrics such as salinity, temperature, and location, and transmit them over a radio link at regular intervals as the buoy drifts on tides and currents in the sea. Our timer turns on the power to the buoy electronics for half an hour once every six hours so that it can collect and transmit data. The maximum total current draw to be switched by this timer is 2 Amps at 12VDC.

Although the timer will be fitted in an airtight container, we thought it better not to use a mechanical relay as high humidity and the marine environment is very corrosive and can cause relays to fail rapidly. Instead we made the whole timer solid state with a MOSFET used to switch the output current. We also made it nice and small and used very low power LEDs with high resistor values to minimise power consumption of the timer itself. All component values user were over-specced for greater reliability.

If you need any kind of timer, email neil@reuk.co.uk with full details of your requirements.