Auto shutoff for electric?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

peterac

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Nov 7, 2004
Messages
164
Location
Long Island, New York
Hi,

I have a pump that I keep in a large vat of fresh water. Every few days I turn the pump on in order to topoff.

I have a large 450 gal setup so I loose alot to evaporation. Also, my sump is in a hotter room than the main so I keep one of the panel complete off the top of the main.

I know it sounds like I should never forget that the pump is running but it has happened and I ended up dropping my salinity to sharply (and minor flood). I work out of my house sometimes so distractions are common.

Anyway, what I am asking is does anyone know of a device that I could set a timer on (say 1 minute) and the electric would cut off after that time?

Thanks!
Pete
 
Well I suppose your looking for something that will cut the power off after you have turned this devise on after 1 min has elapsed or some set period of time. I figure you could build one using a timed relay switch. http://www.attr.com/x10/a4181.htm This is an example.

Another option would be a digital timmer switch if you coudl deal with the pump running for X period of time every day. You could maybe find some more complex ones that you could program to run every other day or on fixed days of the week.
 
Go to Home Depot and get a rotary timer switch. They have some that are for minutes and others that can go for a few hours.

I bought one for charging cordless equiptment. I wired the rotary timer to a standard wall outlet and plug in my equiptment as needed. Set the timer and go out dancing. I've been using this set-upfor several years without a problem.

The switch is very inexpensive.
 
Back
Top Bottom