Just noticed that my light is on when it should be off.

Im three weeks into flowering and my light is normally on from 6 in the evening till 6 in the morning.

Noticed that my plants were starting to wilt 2 days ago but i am normally at work when the light is off.

Anyway, just went up to check that the light was definitely off and the light was on, infact everything was on so I think it is a f*cked timer!

the question is, what do I do from here? Am i completly buggered and my plants will now turn male or is there something I can do to resolve this???

completly panicing here so any advise would be really helpful.

Rukus

Anyone???

Get them back onto 12/12 timing right away, and you should be OK this early into flower.

As for the timers - I've had plently of them 'stick' (arcing across the microswitch contacts inside makes them weld together), and usually there is a temporary reprieve - switch the timer switch to 'off' and for good measure turn the dial around to an off time to, then tap the timer with a screwdriver handle until you hear a 'ping' or until it starts to work rigt again.

Doing this has given me time to either sort out a new timer or repair an old one, and sort out my ballasts with some supression components to stop the inductive arc at the source.

There are pieces of kit you can buy to run lights off, via a standard timer, that stop them from jamming/blowing/burning out, but there are cheaper ways of doing it if you have the time and will - if ya don't, then ya may as well stop reading here, and get thee thyself to thy bank thence to thy Olde Growe Shoppe. ',;~}~




I got me down to Maplin, got replacement microswitches for my timers (took the old ones in to be sure) that had stronger contact opening springs in them, and fitted them to the timers. (Prolly coulda just boght new timers the same and been fine but I am a tinkerer - just get new timers for a speedy shortcut!). I then got me a couple of capacitors and reistors, and fitted them across the mains input to the ballasts:

For my 600 W ballast, used a 50 Ohm resistor (actually used 2 x 100 Ohm connected in paralell, as they had no 50 Ohm), which I connected in series (in-line) with a 0.22 microfarad, 275 volt plastic film or paper, wound capacitor, as follows: -

Connect one wire of the capacitor to the Live supply mains terminal of the ballast (where your brown mains wire is attached), and the other wire to one end of the 50 Ohm resistor. Connect the remaining resistor wire to the Neutral mains terminal of the ballast (where your blue mains wire is attached) - make sure both live and neutral mains wires are still connected well to your ballast - done!

For my 400 W ballast I did the same but using a 100 Ohm resistor and a 0.1 microfarad, 275 volt capacitor.

(There are formulas on the net explaining the correct choice of component values vs. the wattage of the inductive load (in this case the ballast(s)) and the supply voltage (mains 240 AC here), and the above I used are the nearest component values readily available for the 2 sizes of ballast I have.)


The circuit just allows sudden high voltages generated by the inductive ballast to pass straight through them, rather than try and jump across the switch, burning it out, and it works quite well, and is likely a lot simpler to do than it may sound, and certainly cheaper than a ready made piece of kit.

Uhhhmmm... HTH someone!

',;~}~

Iv left the overide switch on the grasslin timer before.needed to do some work 2 mins before lights out and forgot to put it on the timer setting so they had no dark period that night and where fine mate. no signs of lost yield or vegetive re-growth and no hermies so would chill worrying dude.but I worried when I did it.

Really appreciate the reply flowwolf / evil vince

was really worried obviously !

Anyway ill be watching them closely over the next few days and hopefully they will be ok.

Rukus