Intermatic digital timeclock keeps reseting

[J.P.]

On most jobs people love the little single gang intermatic digital timers I put in for the outside lights but.........

I have had this happen a few times. Once in a while you get one that is always resetting. You come back the next day and its flashing 12:00

Reprogram it a day or week later they call you back.
I have changed the battery.
Its on it's own circuit.
I changed out the timer a week ago and the new one is resetting now

It is switching some contactors for outside lighting and signage. In this last case a 2 pole 20A contactor.

I have had these digital timers with 15 contacors being switched by it and had no problems.

I'm about to put a old school timer in.......

 

[mgookin]

Our company makes one with a GPS chip in it. Never needs programming or maintenance.
Self-setting & self-calibrating.
You can PM me if you want more information.

 

[J.P.]

Just post a link to the website, or pm it to me and I'll check it out

 

[mgookin]

Link sent via PM.

 

[Smart $]

Our company makes one with a GPS chip in it. Never needs programming or maintenance.
Self-setting & self-calibrating.
You can PM me if you want more information.

Hmm... if it never needs programming, how can it be installed to say turn on a outdoor sign at dusk and off and the conclusion of business hours which vary by the day of week...???

 

[GoldDigger]

It can't.

Tapatalk!

 

[growler]

On most jobs people love the little single gang intermatic digital timers I put in for the outside lights but.........

I have had this happen a few times. Once in a while you get one that is always resetting. You come back the next day and its flashing 12:00

Reprogram it a day or week later they call you back.
I have changed the battery.

I would think that if you use a good quality battery ( probably not the one provided ) and the timer resets then you have a defective timer and it should be returned.

Lots of poor quality control out there these days.

I would give there service/support a call just to see if the have any better ideas.

 

[Smart $]

I would think that if you use a good quality battery ( probably not the one provided )...

I have one that's been operating 3-1/2 years on the furnished battery.

 

[mjf]

Are you 100% positive there isn't a switch hiding somewhere on the line side of the timer?

You said it's controlling outside lighting and signage.....how did they use to control them?.....by turning the breaker on and off?.....is someone still doing that?

 

[growler]

Our company makes one with a GPS chip in it. Never needs programming or maintenance.
Self-setting & self-calibrating.

So you have a timer that takes the place of a photo cell.

I'm not knocking it. If it's not all that expensive it would be a much easier install.

I like things with less ladder work.

 

[growler]

Are you 100% positive there isn't a switch hiding somewhere on the line side of the timer?

A good battery should keep the clock working for over a week. The lights wouldn't come on but the timer wouldn't reset. Not until the battery runs down.

 

[Smart $]

So you have a timer that takes the place of a photo cell.

I'm not knocking it. If it's not all that expensive it would be a much easier install.

I like things with less ladder work.

Some of the Intermatic digital timers have a so-called astronomic feature. It "tracks" sunrise and sunset for three areas of the U.S.: North, Center, and South... and specific dawn and dusk times for the location can be set. Not certain of the accuracy, especially through the year, but probably sufficient for most outdoor lighting applications.

However, it cannot vary its timing on extremely overcast days.

 

[mjf]

A good battery should keep the clock working for over a week. The lights wouldn't come on but the timer wouldn't reset. Not until the battery runs down.

Ah, forgot about the battery:slaphead:

 

[kwired]

Hmm... if it never needs programming, how can it be installed to say turn on a outdoor sign at dusk and off and the conclusion of business hours which vary by the day of week...???

A little along the lines of what I was going to say.

How does this timer that never needs programming know what your desired set points are going to be?

If you lose power, current time may be easy to restore, but you still need to back up set points or you still do not get desired operation:happyyes:


mgookin will hopefully tell us his unit has a solution to that though

 

[GoldDigger]

Since his device has a GPS receiver, it always knows what the local time is, not just the mean time for the zone it is in.
It is not intended to provide business based schedules, just real, non-photocell-dependent nighttime lighting.

Tapatalk!

 

[mgookin]

Hmm... if it never needs programming, how can it be installed to say turn on a outdoor sign at dusk and off and the conclusion of business hours which vary by the day of week...???

Ours goes on at dusk and off at dawn.

We have customers who are Fortune 500 retailers and they use them to turn lights on at dusk, then use their timer to shut the lights off after employees leave. They don't have the lights come on in the morning because they are closed until 10am. The benefit they get by using ours is that they never have to worry about people babysitting time clocks by the seasons, by daylight savings time, or having photocontrols turning lights on when a cloud goes over, etc.

 

[texie]

On most jobs people love the little single gang intermatic digital timers I put in for the outside lights but.........

I have had this happen a few times. Once in a while you get one that is always resetting. You come back the next day and its flashing 12:00

Reprogram it a day or week later they call you back.
I have changed the battery.
Its on it's own circuit.
I changed out the timer a week ago and the new one is resetting now

It is switching some contactors for outside lighting and signage. In this last case a 2 pole 20A contactor.

I have had these digital timers with 15 contacors being switched by it and had no problems.

I'm about to put a old school timer in.......

Are you certain that the model you are using is rated for the inductive load? Maybe there is an issue with the type of load causing spikes when it turns off.

 

[J.P.]

Are you certain that the model you are using is rated for the inductive load? Maybe there is an issue with the type of load causing spikes when it turns off.

I hadn't considered that.

I do have others ones that work problem free with way more than one contactor being controlled by them.

I was thinking some sort of power surge, but maybe its feedback from the contactor coil? I'm pretty sure I don't know how to test that.

 

[Lectricbota]

Are you certain that the model you are using is rated for the inductive load? Maybe there is an issue with the type of load causing spikes when it turns off.

I had that happen to me a few months ago.

I tried to hook up a digital Intermatic timer to a Omron relay and every time it switched on it blanked the time clock.

Didn't investigate why, just switched it out for a mechanical timer.

 

[GoldDigger]

I had that happen to me a few months ago.

I tried to hook up a digital Intermatic timer to a Omron relay and every time it switched on it blanked the time clock.

Didn't investigate why, just switched it out for a mechanical timer.

If the problem is inductive kick from the relay coil (which actually would be more likely to happen when the timer opens than when it closes), then putting a snubber circuit across the relay coil is probably the best solution short of using a mechanical timer.
A series combination of a resistor and a capacitor will keep the coil from putting a high voltage onto the line when the circuit is opened while the relay coil is carrying current.
Another possibility would be to use an solid state relay between the timer and the contactor coil, and let it handle the inductive kick.

PS: One reason that some in-line timers are so vulnerable to inductive kick is that when the circuit is open they rely on current through the load to power themselves. That means that the inductive kick is applied directly to the power supply circuit of the timer.