I'm about to run a veg box with 4x20w energy savers. I've seen much conflicting information on whether or not they need a relay.

The timer I have is one of those wilkinsons 15min segment timers, with the little blue segments to push in. Do i really need a relay?

NONE of the information on "contactors" or relays on these places tells one what rating to purchase - a bloody nuisance as you NEVER find the inductive load rating on bulbs.. I've got a good 25a relay(bought the biggest i could find) for my HIDs but what rating are other people on here's relays?

that 25 amp relay would be more than enough for 80w of light
infact you wouldn't even need a relay/contactor for 80w of light

Yesnoyesnoyes, i wired them all up the other day after finding my wilkinsons timer was good for 2a inductive load, 13a resistive load - they have exactly the same model in b&q for twice the price. I don't even really need the relay actually because even a 150w HPS won't be loading more than 2a (i think) on startup.. I'll keep it though for when I move up to a double drobe build which will probably be too much for a timer on its own.

Worked fine with the timer on 80w cfl, programmed it for 1 hr of 15 on, 15 off, then rolled up 5 joints of dealer weed and went and sat in the garage with it and some tunes and got royally stoned. Came to the realisation that this drobe will take a lot more work than I had thought, and I don't have the cash right now for pumps and ec meters etc. I do my best work high, can never be arsed to work on it when i don't have any weed and its going to cost a fortune to finish on dealer weed so i decided to do an even smaller grow, a virtual copy of blab's micro box, using the CFLs throughout. It's going to be in soil and will work out to be pretty cheap. Its produce will be cogitative lubricity for the 'drobe and the money i will then save on dealer weed (forty fucking pounds a week for 2-3 days of niceness) will go to buy the expensive parts of doing an e&f grow. Also for some nice seeds.

This makes no sense at all, I'm afraid...

Just because they're 'self-ballasted' has no bearing at all on whether they present an inductive load or not - CFLs of all types *do* actually present quite a current spike at startup, and if you had a good few of them together, and they weren't staggered, you would be well advised to use a contactor with them.

Yep, a lot of PIR switches and presumably some timers are labelled as not being suitable for fluorescents.

I started my last couple of grows with 144 watts of CFLs wired directly to a timer for the first 2 weeks.

One thing about vegging - at least if the relay sticks on, it won't mess up your grow ... just so long as you're checking every day or two to make sure it comes on.

What's with the necropost. You'd think after 7 months, he'd have figured it out one way or another.

Just to add something useful though, there are some cheap envirolite contactors on ebay at the moment, with built in timers, for less than 20 quid. Apparently, they are safe for small HIDs as well (up to 600 watt, according to some sources).