Worthy of note: the motor-driven timers consume 3W constantly - and with modern LED lighting, that means that depending on what you want the timer to do... it may not save any energy! If you use it to control a lamp with a single 5W bulb for 8 hours day, then it saves 80 watt-hours while also consuming 72 watt-hours. In that specific case, you might as well just leave the light on all day and forget having a timer!
If you want a timing sequence that has a period longer than 24 hours, you can plug one timer into another. The second timer runs only when it gets current from the first. You can get really complicated switching patterns that way, but it is really confusing...
One thing I love about mechanical engineering is just because the operation may be simple does not mean the explanation is simple. To properly explain a clock on a switch we have to talk about line frequency, and cam actions, and spring tension.....I mean, I like it.....then again watching someones eyes glaze over 3 sentences into explaining how something works is entertaining to me too so......😄
When I was a kid we called those "coffee timers", at least in my family. Namely, it was a timer into which you plugged the coffee pot. A few years ago I went to the store and asked where they had "coffee timers". They looked at me like I was speaking Greek.
never heard it called coffee timer but remember as a kid seeing my parents use one to turn a coffee pot off and on. later in life I would buy one myself to use on a christmas tree and outdoor lighting.
If you want to store the tabs and not mess up the timing, just put both « on » tabs next to each other and both « off » tabs next to each other. Since they won’t mess up the actual timing, you can just use the spaces between the first on/off switches as storage.
I always liked how these very old timers with mechanical switches had a bit of natural variance in their on/off times as they worked to overcome the force of toggling... A little deviation in the times can make for a more natural look than hard-timed perfection of newfangled digital timers. (Although now we have programmed-in randomness on some units I've seen, to make lights look more "human" which is also neat)
Ya know, my digital timers have drift as well, it's just much less and only needs to be corrected a couple times a year. I get a kick out of the drift tho from both kinds, I like the small variation introduced since it causes my various pet enclosures to light up at slightly different times. Given that there are so many of them we don't really use ceiling lights, it's a nice organic effect every morning and night.
@@ZeroTooL88 There are rather cheap ones obtainable on the consumer market- while I can't really think of any "normal person" application they don't seem to be all that safe overall and seemingly use a similar timer design
@@zechsblack5891 Its less about clock drift, and more about the lack of precision of the tabs that flick the switch. Due to the extremely slow moving clock dial combined with the springs-overcoming-friction nature of the switch, there will be some day-to-day imprecision in the time the switch flips even if the clock doesn't drift. If you are using this device to turn lights on and off when you aren't home as a burglar deterrent, the imprecision is actually a win.
The removable tabs can be stored on the timer. Just insert all the spare "on" taps into a time span where its already on, and the spare off ones into a time span where its already off. This has issues if you only want it to be on or off for a very short period each day, but otherwise works pretty well (or at least it did for me back when I used the exact timer you showed). Sadly they tended to wear out pretty fast when used 24/7. Great for seasonal use though.
I had two of those Intermatic timers with the green and red tabs, and it was so poorly made that the pressure of the tabs on the switch would occasionally push the tab out of the wheel. Not enough that it fell on the floor or anything, but enough that it wouldn't actuate anymore. They were just too loose on the wheel. So I'd put the extra tabs as close as possible to the ones I actually wanted to trigger the timer, and if I saw it was running late, I knew the first had popped out. That's a "you had ONE job" situation.
Hey, it's the timer I sent you like 3 years ago! 😅 Thank you so much for such a cool video involving the old 1970's timer. Your "why are electric switches clicky" video had just come out and I figured you might find something interesting to say about the mechanism. Wow, wasn't expecting a whole video on timer switches as I didn't think there was much to them! Also total win on the plug detents.
Thanks buddy. My mom used that same exact timer to fire up her coffee maker every day of my childhood, so this brought back a ton of memories. These things are nigh on indestructible as well, it was in use well into the mid 2000s when she finally forked out for a coffee maker with a built in clock.
You can store the removable tabs right next to the in-use tabs. For example put 3 ON tabs together right after the desired ON time and 3 OFF tabs together right after the desired OFF time. That's what I do for my outdoor landscape light transformer timer.
I would be willing to say Intermatic likely was the first company that made timer switches. They are still around today making things like pool timers, but their staple is delay on, delay off, and even more sophisticated relays! EDIT: Tab storage - It's literally right there!!!! To store the tabs, you set the tab for on, and then place the rest of the "on" tabs in the section where it will be on... Then set your off time and place the remaining "off" tabs in the section where it will be off. Too bad they never bothered to put that in the instructions...
Unless you want whatever thing you're switching to be on or off for a short period of time, so the space between on and off tabs would be too narrow to fit the unused tabs
@@NanoMan737400 Picky, picky, picky... Oh, wait, this is Technology Connections and 99% of the regulars here consider this normal. 😁 P. S. One feature of these timers is that some of them, all in my case, have motors that start to get noisy after a few years. I get a new quiet one, but keep the old one on the floor underneath it and use it to store my unused tabs.
Something I love about your videos (among other things) is how there's a sort of "Technology Connections curriculum," for a lack of a better words, that builds off of previous knowledge I already know (or have the opportunity to learn by clicking the i card). There's almost a certain chronology to it, yet it doesn't necessitate watching every video in order. Additionally, this enhances my knowledge about all of the *connections* between various *technologies.* Hmm, I guess that's why it's called that...
Technological progress is knowledge building on top of previous knowledge. You may have first realized this concept through videos but it's the entire way that science works.
Half of your videos I'm excited to learn how a thing works. The other half I'm like, "yeah, yeah, I bet I know how this works," but then not only do I still learn a whole bunch, but you make it entertaining. You rock :)
Thank you for always making me interested in things I never even notice. These devices are so standard in terrarium or aquarium setups that I took them for granted. They're surprisingly nifty!!
It is kind of heart warming to see how much well deserved attention is given to such a humble everyday item. I can almost see them blush as you present their simple innards.
I was wondering if the retaining dimples are there because the plug is going to be inserted vertically, which is presumably fairly unusual? (Here in Britain our plug-in timers and similar in-line gadgets nearly always have the socket on the front face, because the cord exits the plug at right angles.)
I'm glad that you found receptacles that engage with the holes in the plugs! You and I both seem to have been suspicious about this for years (well, more years for me), so it's nice to find at least something that actually uses the holes.
Outdoor sockets on a LOT of things, from stakes for the yard lighting to extension cords and even a few "exterior grade" outlets had internal bits to interact with the holes on plugs. I think it also had to do with light vs medium vs heavy duty definitions as well. The idea was to exploit them so the plugs could be forcefully (albeit only lightly) retained against dropping on the ground and getting walked on or rolled over by vehicles and other equipment... I can't recall seeing any since about the mid 90's... ;o)
I also noted that the holes are chamfered which I've never seen before. So not only are they using the holes but is enhanced to make even better contact.
I always enjoy your comedic timing. It runs until the moment just before it becomes tremendous cringe and then moves on. Dunno how that timing gets nailed down but I like it
I like it too. When I first started watching this channel it would turn me off. Perhaps it took a minute for Alec to hone his craft, but it sure is awesome now.
Well if any episodes of the TV show deconstructed have ever been uploaded to UA-cam I'm pretty sure you can find the episode of there about that particular device because I distinctly remember there being an episode on ice makers
I'm so happy to have stumbled upon your channel a couple months ago. I've learned so many things about the complexity of things I took for granted. And I find myself more curious than ever about how things work nowadays.
The ones with the individual pins that pull out are handy to use with an iron that doesn't have an auto-off switch. When using your iron, just plug it into a timer that only has Off pins set. Set the Off pin for the maximum time you'll be using the iron. If you forget to unplug the iron or turn it off, you have a safety backup.
... or for not much more you could buy a good iron like the Panasonic NI-W810CS which lets you iron your clothes faster and if your time is worth anything will pay for itself in no time flat.
Our iron doesn't have an auto-off switch, yet we never have had a problem of leaving the iron on. How is this possible? Small house. We have to do the ironing in the hallway. And the iron gets stored in the hallway linen closet. Even tho the house is small, the cord of the iron is not long enough to let us store the iron with it plugged in and potentially on. And there's not enough room in the hall to let us leave the ironing table standing in the hall unnecessarily. So whenever we're done ironing clothes, we put the iron and ironing table away right after. The iron is never in a state where it can be left on unattended because of this. I think this can be made to work even in larger houses with a dedicated laundry room where you could feasibly leave the ironing table standing up all the time, all you need to do is build up a habit of always unplugging the iron when you're done using it.
I am baffled that modern hair appliances don't have built-in auto-off technology. About once every other week my wife leaves her flat iron on. It's not gonna burn anything down, but it is starting to turn the white countertop a brownish hue.
@@fearlessfreep They do make them. I have one. I hate it. If I plug it in to heat it up, and get distracted away from it, it turns off. Then when I'm ready to use it, it's cold and I have to turn it on again and wait for it to heat up again... Making me late. BTW this, what I have, is not "a timer" to set an exact time but just an auto-off built into it, but the annoyance would be the same with a timer. My iron does the same thing: If I walk away to hang clothes and it takes a while to reorganize stuff when I get back to the iron it's off and not hot enough to iron with.
These sort of devices are quite common in Finland, where places like workplace or some apartment parking lots need to be able to heat up cars at winter! I remember freezing my fingers off every time i had to figgle one of those to turn on at 4AM and off at 6AM when I was leaving my nightshifts at - 30°C. The warm car felt nice👌
sure but the analog ones are rare nowadays since it costs almost nothing to get a complete control loop automation taking into account data from some probes and sensors.
All the ones I've used here have been the analog kind, surprisingly! And to the person who asked how to warm up a parked car, you get a cable that runs from a little electric box at the parking, through one of these timers to the front of your car with a cable! That starts warming up the engine compartment of your car, and if you want to warm up the inside of the car as well, which I ALWAYS want to do, you plug a small heater into an outlet in the footwell of the front passanger seat. Once your car is plugged in, you can turn it on! 👌
@@Zummeli nice. Here in Australia the problem is a hot car not a cool car. If you're able to park in the shade (or a garage) it's reasonably comfortable getting in but a car left in the sun on a 40C day is no fun at all. I've never seen a cooling setup like your heaters. I guess the fluids don't get hot enough to boil so it's never been necessary
I use an outdoor version of the 3rd mechanical one with the 48 pins to control my pool pump. I have it set to run for one hour at 3 different times each day. Pretty handy and quite reliable!
Yup, my pool filter/pump controller has a couple big fancy high amperage ones of these (in reality the internals are probably practically identical… hate to think what that relay looks like inside) built in for controlling the heat pump and filter.
Back, I don´t remember when, I was called to a village in Germany where clocks went haywire when it was raining. Reason was that they had a pump for their high water protection system. The pump was controlled by a variable frequency drive. The drive was a thyristor drive, that, while running, induced interferences in the power grid of the village. The clocks then saw a grid frequency of 100 Hz, instead of 50 Hz, So, while the drive was running, the clocks went at twice the normal speed. A LC filter got rid of the problem
I can't believe how you weren't absolutely furious with how these digital timers are unintuitive. Maybe it's just these I have ever used. And as always, amazing video!
My stepdad was OBSESSED with these things! We had, at minimum 8 different lights attached to separate timers at all times. I'm not sure if he wanted to make it look like people were always home or just didn't like turning on the lights manually lol! Major flashbacks as soon as you pulled out that Intermatic one!
I’ve got that timer with the lose-able blades! I found that since having multiple on or off blades in a row doesn’t affect anything, I’d store all of the off next to each other, and all of the on next to each other. Only an issue if you wanted the on/off cycle to be 15 mins. But this explains the hum from it! I figured it was related to the grid hz, but didn’t really register that there’s an entire motor in there!!!
We've had a electromechanical timer switch used to start the washing machine during the (cheaper) night tarriff wear out... the plastic sensor finger got worn off so far over the years it did not switch anymore.
I was hoping you would cover my favorite doo--dad, the timer I use for my holiday (Halloween and Chrismas) lights: it plugs into the wall (or in my case my outdoor plug) and has three outlets on it. It also has a dial that allows you to either turn it on, or set it to 2, 4, 6, 8 or "all night". It has an electric eye that detects when it gets dark and turns on the lights for the specified time. It is one of the most insanely useful things I have ever bought...
Yeah, and the sun also does this thing where it goes behind clouds, which can occasionally trip the photocells even when there's enough light to see or worse cause them to flicker erratically.
I worked with a variant of those devices at a hotel: it was an alarm clock with slidable tabs all around the dial at fifteen minute intervals. We used it to make manual wake-up calls to rooms. Each tab set would make it buzz until we hit a switch to silence it, then we would look at a list to see which rooms to call. Four-star service, baby!
I have had that second white one my entire life and since it’s the only one I’ve ever needed I thought it was the pinnacle of outlet timer technology. The digital one blew my mind!😂
A bigger cousin to these would be older mechanical traffic controllers. They have a timer that rotates continuously and has tabs set at various places to adjust the percentage of time for a given indication. The actual sequence of lights is controlled by the cam, which is stepped each time a timer tab trips the switch. Thus with two systems, the timer and the cam, you have a unit that can control in what order the lights go and for how long each step is. Acme School has an episode on them, but it would be neat to see you do your take on them as well since you have the traffic modules in the back wall display.
I hope he'll do a video on those. They're wonderfully complex, especially since they have a lot of safety mechanisms to prevent things like an all-green situation.
Electromechanical traffic controllers could be synchronized as long as they were on the same distribution circuit. Traffic Engineers used to synchronize lights by pulling and plugging fuses. It doesn't work between circuits because there is enough inherent variance between distribution transformers to allow the timing to drift.
That's remarkably similar to the timers that sirens would use for noon/curfew blasts. A clock that would momentarily close a contact at a certain time or times, and a timer that used cams and microswitches for the signal timing and duration, and possibly controlling a coding damper if the siren had one.
We have almost that exact third timer (with the depressible switches) and it is connected to a floor lamp that clicks on at 7:30 AM and wakes me up, and shuts itself off at 8:30 AM. In combination with a Fitbit and a silent alarm, mornings are much more pleasant now. Instant sunrise!
I applaud you for having the patience to deal with that one. My family used the second one for years and recently bought that one when it broke. have been super frustrated since!
So some years ago I was going on a little over 2 week vacation in winter, and wanted hot water ready for tea on my return home. So I plugged my ELECTRIC KETTLE, switched on, into a mechanical 24hr timer like this set at just before midnight programmed to switch on at "2am". I then plugged that timer into a digital weekly timer set to run for exactly 1 hour at just before the time & day-of-week I was set to arrive home. And I left. A couple of days later, 2 weeks before my return, the digital timer turned on for exactly 1 hour, which advanced the mechanical timer to just before 1 am, and then shut off. A week later, and 1 week before my return, the digital timer again turned on for an hour and ran the mechanical timer to just before 2 am. And then another week later, just before my return time from the airport, the digital timer fired up for another hour. A few minutes later the mechanical timer finally got to "2am" and turned on the full kettle which boiled the water and then, after waiting over 2 weeks, finally clicked off. The result: my tea water was boiled and ready perfectly on cue waiting for me to arrive. Which I did many hours later due to a delayed flight. Aww shucks.
I have the second timer. You store the extra tabs by just plugging them into the dial. As you pointed out, they perform a no-op if they are on a part of the dial where the event they handle is already triggered.
I love these silly timers and always wondered how they worked. My grandma had pin-based ones, eventually upgraded to digital (which I had to program for her!). Now that im a responsomable adulting person, I decided to go for a basic "built-in pins" version for my xmas light festivities. And thanks for pinning the comment about wattage - I hooked my watt monitor up to see what the tree uses (btw, YIKES, 180w), and was surprised that the timer itself consumed a few watts. Mine also makes a faint but clearly audible ticking noise, and now that you showed me the gear box, I know why! Thanks!
These videos are always so interesting, and I always look forward to your deep dives into historical tech. They remind me of episodes of the old British show The Secret Life of Machines.
I remember having these as a kid. I was born in the mid-80s, and I remembering playing with them in my earliest memories. They were already considered old at that point, so your assessment of them being from the 70s seems in line with that. The non-polarized plug thing made them tricky even back then.
I’m 47 and those Intermatics gave me a powerful blast of nostalgia. My grandfather used to use those a bunch in his house. I remember walking around as a little kid thinking they looked so cool and complicated. Got older, he passed, and I found a few of his laying around. They are very cool, and fairly bullet proof. I’d much much rather have that ‘70s Intermatic than the one with the digital programmable display. Those are a pain to program.. and then after you learn it you forget the next year when you have to do it again. Now a days of course, smart home IoT devices do all this. Yep, nostalgia.
@@andymerrett I find the old ones are rock solid as far as time keeping goes whereas the new ones with the quartz crystals tend to drift. Sure, it's only about 15 minutes a year but if you have one you leave on all the time you do have to reset it after a while.
I'm your age and have had to use timers quite a lot (ok, i haven't always had to use them but since they are around...).. You are right about the digital timers, trying to program them using only two buttons is a nightmare and so i use mechanical timers if current allows it. Also, the digital timers still use a battery backup and those can crap on you... The next timer is going to be WiFi but NOT IoT... Do not buy IoT if you don't need it, the security on those are abysmal. WiFi or Bluetooth is usually all you need anyway.
Those spell checkers were handy back in the day. We used a Franklin Spelling Ace. Our earliest word processing software didn't have a spell check built into it.
Looks like it's time for 'Just the right amount of effort' January. I have both of the 'modern' versions of the timer switches in use in my house, and found that doubling up the green/red tabs so that both 'on' or 'off' instances occur in succession is a handy way of storing the tabs without impacting the functionality. The only issue I have with these is that some of the heating pads I want to use them with require a manual power button press on the cord to turn on due to a safety feature. I guess we're not phosisticated enough to have that work just yet.
You know, depending on what you're using those heating pads for, you could probably find ones purpose designed for 2x the cost (or more), but at least they will be "dumb" as in they'll just start working when the power is turned on. Or you know, if you're not using it for people you could probably connect one of these timer switches to a small patch of tile that has electric floor heating grids installed in it, with that tile patch providing the heat to whatever you're trying to heat currently with heating pads. Alternatively, you might see if you can open up the control box of those heating pads and short out the button that turns it on, that way it turns on whenever it gets power with no intervention needed (but it might not be that simple)
@@44R0Ndin The heating pads are for sphynx cats, so they need access to them when they want to nap, but shouldn't remain on 24/7. The current best solution is to use the 'dumb' style of heating pads inside insulated cat beds so that they don't need to stay turned on in order to stay warm. We use the 'smart' ones with a 2 hour shutoff as one-offs when needed, but it would be nice to have those automated as well.
the big brother of this is the sangamo weston street light timer and outdoor lighting timer, its excetionally well made and the on/off tabs are moved mechanically by some extra curved metal pieces to account for seasonal variation in dawn/dusk. Thinking of carparks they even added a little wheel to exclude days of the week. Everything in it is mechanical and basic but btilliant. its been updated over the years but i like the 70s versions the best
I like the mention of the use for sign lighting. Having worked in the sign business most of my life, I can definitely say that photocells are not a great solution as they do not last long at all. Most people who want to go the route of photocells instead of timers do it just because it’s cheaper and doesn’t require access into the breaker panel. I will always try to pitch timers just because of their reliability
Do the photocells not last long because they're of a cheap make or is it all the photocells no matter the quality that are impacted ? (I mean, lots of streetlights use photocells).
I think a lot of it comes down to a cheap make because of it being such a widely used solution. The ones in street lights that I also work on seem to last quite a bit longer than the standard 120 volt photocells, even from the same manufacturer@@psirvent8
A great and phosisticated video! A german Wiki article about „Zeitschaltuhren“ (timed switching clocks) dates the first iterations in the first half of the last century
Hmm... there were sundial cannons, over 400 years ago - which went "bang" every noon. That's kinda the same? Or... what about flowers that open and close each day?
The oldest clock switch I've ever owned was from my grand father's chicken coop. Looking back I think it pre dated WW2. It was a large black metal case with an actual pendulum clock inside and a small 24 hour dial with metal arrows you could set to program on and off times. Too bad I threw it away somewhere in the mid eighties :(
I have one similar to that (it's missing the case) that operates on a mainspring. It has an actual snap switch that it activates. I'm guessing it's pre-1930, but would be willing to bet it's WW1 era. It sits in a box because I can't find anyone to replace the balance spring.
Alec, it is unbelievable to me how we have at some point in our lives probably had the same ward niche interest in some seemingly mundane object and this is another one. I've gone through periods of mini obsessions with timer switches several times, to the point that I have a collection of them. Tons of intermatic Time-All's and plenty of other weird ones, like one particularly unique very old 1930's? Art Deco one with a mechanical wind up clock, I love these things!
I remember those mechanical timers well, mainly because my parents had a handful of them around the house when I was growing up, and KEPT them around for years. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they still have at least one of them in a drawer somewhere, and that they've actually used it to turn their lights on when on vacation in recent years. They were very much like that first timer you demonstrated, though I don't think any of them were that exact model. But it's really cool now to finally see how they work!
these things go way back, there are also the hard wired full metal type. Also, I love when you pull something out and its the exact model I've had around the house basically my whole life lol
I was SHOCKED to see no Smart Electrician logos on the last two timers brought out. I just know how much Alec loves that specific Midwest home improvement store chain.
I do occasionally shop there, but really can't stand the owner's politics. So I don't typically go there unless I'm in a hurry or they're the only place that has what I need.
@@strehlow As long as the politics are quirky or extreme enough, I actually prefer it. Bring on your flat earth and excessive firearms, much more interesting than boring normality.
I've got a bunch of the type with the removable tabs. We put them on a few lights any time we'll be out of town for more than a few days so lights come on and off, making it look like people are home to reduce the chance of someone attempting to burgle. Also useful for my grow lights I use to grow herbs in the winter (no window sunlight here in NY winter).
I just bought my first house, a 1952 bungalow. I wish I could have you just be a consultant on my renovations. Your videos have been an invaluable asset!
It's so satisfying that the 48-tab design has barely changed in 40+ years! The one we bought for our Christmas lights differs only aesthetically from the ones my mom had for her Christmas lights.
Alec, you amaze me every time with the topic you cover on your channel, you talk about everyday objects that like almost everyone has at home. And they're incredibly interesting. This video inspired me to check out what kind of different timer switches I have at home, just gotta find 'em lol
Picked up a basic timer, like the one with built in pegs you showed, at Christmas for my tree lights. Cost £3 from the local hardware shop. So cheap and simple. They even had a version with a week timer on it, instead of 24hr. Just meant the outside wheel moved very slowly as they’d squeezed in an entire week on it.
I swear when I was a kid (late 80's early 90's) we had a timer that looked very similar to the first one but with removable metal tabs. It was in the laundry room. I think it somehow was wired up with the hot water tank outside so it would stop heating around midnight and then kick back in around 5 in the morning. But it's been so long I couldn't be a reliable source. Also I was 10 the last time I saw that thing.
Yes; the one with the removable metal tabs predates the "slide the tab" version by quite a while. We had one of those that ran the outdoor Christmas lights, then ran my mom's Gro-Light some weeks later when she started her seeds for the garden. You actually pulled the dial out of the unit to change the tabs. For manual use, you pulled it out slightly. We had that timer switch since at least the early '70s. The sliding tab ones didn't come out until the late '70s or early '80s. My parents are *still* using that 50 year old timer for Christmas lights; however, it's just the window decorations now.
I have an intermatic like that for my pool pump. Little thumbscrews on the tabs, and a lever that gets flipped by them. Same lever is also a manual switch. And you pull the face out and rotate it to set the time.
To keep from losing the little on/off pegs, I used to put the on pegs next to each other on the time wheel. I then can move them if need a second time segment.
I also love how through the video there is this much needed theme of "technology is becoming overcomplicated" going through it. Like not everything needs wifi and an app to work. And in fact, it makes it more likely to break and fail.
When doing a google search you can add a - sign with a word after it at the end to exclude that word from your search. So if you're searching for switches for example you could add -nintendo to the end.
Variants of the third design are common as muck in the UK, albeit with 96 tabs (15 minute intervals) - but as they age, the gearing becomes increasingly loud, so I relegated them to controlling porch / outdoor Christmas lights, and bought the fourth type for indoors.
Exactly the same situation in Germany. The one I bought was quite noisy from the start, but it only cost about 3€, so I never expected high quality! ;-)
@@rootbrian4815 It's not squeaking though, it's clicking, so I suppose grease won't do anything about that. At the moment I don't need the thing though, so I can't be bothered to test it ;-)
i rarely saw these things growing up. i thought they were neat but i was also curious how they worked for the exact amount of time they were in my field of view. thanks for the awesome videos on interesting stuff as well as a bonus bloopers! :D
Another enjoyable dive into a common, overlooked household gadget. I really like the early "pre wall wart" style Intermatic Time-Alls that sat on a table and had a power cord. Just neater IMO.
Basically ALL AC powered electro-mechanical clocks were driven by synchronous motors. They kept perfect time and only had to be reset when there was a power failure. Early digital clocks that plugged into wall power counted 60 cycles for their time bases. Even today, some AC - wall powered clocks still count the 60 Hz power. Crystals just aren't as accurate for long term time keeping.
Great topic, and great video, as always! My family has been using these kinds of timers since the late 1960s, when my grandparents first found out about them. (Religious Jews don't turn electrical things on and off on sabbath and holidays, so we use these timers to make life on those days more convenient.) After doing a bit of research to identify the picture burned into my brain, I think my grandparents' first one was an Intermatic Time-All Model A-211, which had a power cord, stood upright on molded-in feet, looked something like a big alarm clock and had the override switch on the right side. That timer might've outlasted my grandparents. My wife bought a timer exactly like your first one when she was in college in the mid 1980s. She still had it when we got married, and we used it (dare I say religiously? 🤣) for about 20 years, at which point it failed. I don't remember if one of the plastic parts of the switch broke off or the motor burned out, but whatever killed it, she definitely got her money's worth out of it. At some point, I bought two timers exactly like your second. Each came with two sets of trippers, and I did exactly what you implied in the video, and when I needed one of the timers to turn a light on and off three times over a 24-hour period, I borrowed two trippers from the other timer. I also discovered, as you mentioned, that those trippers are ridiculously easy to lose, so at this point I think I have one timer with two sets of trippers on its dial and the other has two OFF triippers (but no ON trippers) on its dial. Oh, well... I also have timers similar to, but not exactly like, your last two. In addition, I have one programmable in-wall timer that replaces a light switch. Acquiring that was something of a production. My first such timer was a relatively simple model that got its power from the household current. That was fine until CFL spiral bulbs that fit into most fixtures came out, and I quickly discovered that my wall timer was incompatible with those. Apparently, it depended on the filament resistance of incandescent bulbs in some way, and having even one CFL in my dining room chandelier caused all the bulbs to flicker and the timer to make funny noises. So, I had to stick with incandescent bulbs in that fixture until I discovered a wall timer that used a pair of AA batteries to run the clock and operate a mechanical switch to turn the lights on and off. That worked fine no matter what kind of bulbs I put in the light fixture. It was a bit annoying in that the switch made a curious sound when turned the lights on or off, which took some getting used to, and it went through several sets of batteries per year. It lasted for about 10 years, after which the plastic hook that held the battery compartment in broke, and I had to replace it. The updated model offers relatively complex programming, auto daylight savings time adjustment (obsolete since the last DST rules change), switching the lights at dawn and dusk, and a lot of other features. It uses some sort of camera battery instead of AAs, but it also uses a more efficient electronic switch instead of a mechanical one, so each battery lasts several years.
I have to ask: do you (or your grandparetns) use the sabbath mode on your oven? I actually mistakenly discovered this on the oven in my last house when I hit some combination of the buttons and it suddenly showed "sbt" or some such on the display and I had to go dig the instruction manual out of the basement to figure out what happened and how to cancel it...
@@jimbarino2, funny you should ask that. My brothers and at least one of my sisters use sabbath mode on their ovens at least once every week. I use it on mine occasionally, but my wife has to ask me to turn it on for her, because she has never successfully done so. Sabbath mode, which is actually something of a misnomer, does two things. First, it enables the oven to stay on longer than 12 hours, give or take. Second - and this is why it's a bit of a misnomer - is that it provides a means for changing the temperature of the oven on Jewish holidays (but NOT on the sabbath) within the confines of Jewish law.
I remember these timers. I remember my grandparents using these back in the 70’s to deter possible thieves. If they saw lights coming on and going off they would think someone was home.
We use one with removable tabs for our electric water heater. In that case, there's no outlet 'cause it's directly wired. Your older video on how the US gets 240V power actually helped me diagnose an issue we were having where the heater was only connected to Ground, +120V, and neutral instead of +120V, -120V, and ground like it was supposed to be, and so we weren't getting enough hot water. Very helpful video, thanks!
Mechanical ones are really practical and have a user interface that is hard to beat. The digital ones seem versatile, but one has to figure out how to set it up.
Yeah, great for people who want or need the extra degree of control, but for me it gives me anxiety just thinking about needing to think that hard to program an outlet timer.
Agree!! I once had a digital timer whose buttons were so tiny that you ended up with dents in your fingers after setting it up... Always prefer mechanical - unless you have a power cut of course!
mechanical timers are great. I'd actually use them, if those motors wouldn't produce noise 24/7. So digital it is for me! (also I'm now somewhat hooked onto home automation - so now everything is digital for me, comes at double the price and I'm constantly switching batteries and wondering why nothing works. FUN!)
I've used most of those. Most recently for a small lamp in the living room which turns on every night. I *hated* climbing under the table twice a year to adjust for DST so I ended up going with a smart outlet that I had sitting around. Say what you want, but adjusting the on/off time from your phone can certainly be an advantage over poking buttons under a table!
If it helps at all to narrow down the date of which your timer was manufactured... Your timer, a Intermatic Corporation Time-All (Model D111) was introduced during the 1970s (hence your beloved woodgrain in the trim for the model name). I don't know when in the 1970s it was produced, but it was during the 1970s... like maybe 1970-1979 or within that timeframe. Hope this helps, Allec! :)
The ones I use in the UK are at bit like the third one you showed except they have like a hundred tiny little tabs you push down or leave up so you can do more complex on and off cycles for various reasons, like making it look more convincing that someone is in. I use one to run my old fridge that has a broken thermostat or somthing so freezes everything and runs constantly, I have it turn on for 15mins off for 30 and it works perfectly keeping the fridge at an appropriate temperature. Of course there are digital ones now but the ones I have work fine.
I bought a temperature controller board from China for $3. Used an old lamp cord to power it. It has a display and programable settings (buttons). Two temperature probes were included. Simple wiring but only displays in Celsius. I use it to control temperature in my fish tank. You could use this to control temperature _precisely_ or to turn on a lamp if your freezer gets too warm, or both if you get the proper board. I mounted mine in a plastic 5.25" hard drive case ($1.50).
I have one on my boiler (bypassed for a smart thermostat now). I can see it being handy if you need more than one or two periods, like morning, evening, and lunchtime?
When I had a car with a block heater, I had one of these set up to start the heater some time before I needed to leave. Helped immensely when it was -30 Freedom units out one morning.
Excellent video! A great use for these timers today are for pets! I have 2 similar ones to the 3rd 48-tab version. 1 is for the basking and UV lamps for my Russian Tortoise and the other for my fish tank lights. I set them to turn on the lights during the day and off when it gets dark so I don't have to do it manually. It's very convenient!
Since you were wondering, the wires probably aren't soldered. It's a technique called wire wrapping which predates the widespread use of solder and still is used occasionally to connect components that don't take solder well. Although, it normally works best on leads with a square cross section as it bites into the wrapped wire a bit better.
yup wrapping was a huge trend decades ago. With squared pins and the appropriate tool it makes very reliable contacts. Now it's mostly used when solder melting is a concern.
IIRC, they work with a tiny bit of the water pressure. They leak just a slight bit of water out to move the clock movement. I imagine you must adjust the speed of them to your municipal water pressure however. Newer ones are electronic
Neat teardown, I'm liking "November in January"! I once built a few "industrial grade" electromechanical timer units for a client who owned a quality control company. They tested fabric samples (among a variety of other things) for parameters like durability, colourfastness, and resistance to colour fade in strong sunlight which was simulated by exposing samples to a bank of powerful UV lamps for a calculated period of time. They were using typical off-the-hardware-store-shelf electromechanical timers for the lamps as Alec demonstrates here, but they kept failing as the high inrush current of the lamp ballasts exceeded the switch contact rating in these consumer-grade units... they would arc every time they switched on and eventually weld themselves closed, even though the steady-state current draw was only about 6A per unit (well below the 10A @ 240V nominal rating which is standard for consumer power outlets and switching hardware here in Australia). I couldn't do anything to limit the inrush current to the ballasts because then the lamps wouldn't strike and could possibly sustain damage or have a reduced lifespan, and these lamps were _expensive_ , like "replacement lamp for your high-end home theatre projector" type of money. So I sourced some "Heavy Duty" electromechanical timer modules from Farnell (now Element14) which had a peak rating of 16A for the switch contacts and a nominal rating of 12A. They were of the type that feature two concentric rings of closely-spaced holes on the timer dial - one for On times and the other for Off times - which accept metal pins to set the program. The closeness of the hole spacing allowed for control of on/off intervals down to 5 minutes i.e. 12 divisions per hour in each of the "On" and "Off" rings, which suited the application perfectly. There was a very simple "pin sliding in slot" type of flush-mounted manual override switch on the side of the unit, and nice chonky screw terminals for the mains wiring. They were not cheap. The programming pins were incredibly easy to lose (even though there were a few additional holes on the face of the unit to store unused pins) and they were a bit fiddly to use when setting timing intervals but apart from that it was a pretty solid design, and in this application we were only interested in a few specific time periods so it was a set-and-forget kind of deal. Installed them in grounded metal enclosures into which I fitted heavy-duty mains input/switched output sockets and a suitably rated fuseholder + slow-blow fuse. As far as I'm aware, they were still working fine when he eventually wrapped up the company in the 2010s about a decade after I supplied them, and would probably have gone on for another couple of decades with no issues. There's something to be said for the reliability of the good ol' geared-synchronous-motor-just-flipping-a-switch design. :)
Very cool! The design with the microswitch is actually used in some older commercial walk-in freezers. The HVAC system on the roof has this timer to set the de-icing stages of the freezer. Edit: I should have watched the rest of the video... :|
I've had all of those kinds of timers since my family does a lot of gardening and we get the young plants started in the house under lights before transplanting them outside.
Great video. As a part of my work I am represent Macromatic, which broke off from Intermatic to just serve the industrial and OEM market. Now I get people asking me for a timer and I need to ask them a series of questions (timer function, voltage, current, poles, time, physical configuration, oh look... A second time setting, and so on) to narrow down from 20,000 different models to the right one for their application. It's neat but also maddening. Great video. Thanks.
thank you for all you do. i had one of those timers that had an option to change the on and off times daily randomly. have not seen one since the 1990's
Those built-in-tiny-tab designs used to be pretty common on household boilers in the UK. I've lived in flats with them, and they were a very handy way to pre-set having your heating come on in the winter. Much better than my current system, wherein my boiler reads the programme from a thermostat across the flat from it -- but sometimes decides to connect to my neighbour's thermostat instead, and heat to their programme instead of mine. Meanwhile, I'm still enjoying a plug-in mechanical-tab timer switch in Scottish winters, which I have plugged into a SAD lamp so that it turns on before my alarm in the mornings, so I don't have to get up in the dark.
That gear-reduction cluster is needed to make the wheel rotate at the correct speed of 1 rpd, but it also adds a huge amount of mechanical advantage, allowing the tiny motor to easily push the levers or buttons in the crudely made device, which require some force to actuate.
We have some hybrid electronic/mechanical timers you might like. They use the same timer as that electronic one you showed, but instead of a relay they have a linear motor and mounting bracket for a light switch. When it's time to actuate the motor moves some bars with wheels which flips the switch.
One downside of these is that they lose time when there’s a power cut. When we bought our current house, we thought the heated towel rail In the bathroom was defective, because it was hard wired to one of these under the house. I found the timer but there was no label saying what it was connected to - eventually I put it together.
I have the digital version of it (no need for gearing to wear out), which turns on and off, outside LED rope light I installed on my balcony. It's quite handy instead of letting it stay on during the day or manually un/plugging it. It's also due to the area lighting sometimes going out during a brownout.
Worthy of note: the motor-driven timers consume 3W constantly - and with modern LED lighting, that means that depending on what you want the timer to do... it may not save any energy! If you use it to control a lamp with a single 5W bulb for 8 hours day, then it saves 80 watt-hours while also consuming 72 watt-hours. In that specific case, you might as well just leave the light on all day and forget having a timer!
I like your appropriately themed wardrobes
1:06
Idea for next TC video - "How to use exclusion flags in Google search"
Put one of these on your hot water heater and save a bunch.
Good point!!😂
except an led bulb won't last as long if on all the time, and having a light on all the time makes it seem like no one is home.
If you want a timing sequence that has a period longer than 24 hours, you can plug one timer into another. The second timer runs only when it gets current from the first. You can get really complicated switching patterns that way, but it is really confusing...
Doesn't sound that confusing to me. Some simple napkin math or its modern version: some simple Excel math, should do the trick
Many of the digital ones tend to reset if power is cut
@@0xbenediktget a mechanical one
That's a great hack. 👍
@@DanTDMJace Or a digital one with a battery.
It's a testament to your video making prowess and progress that such a polished and entertaining video is deemed a "No Effort" video.
This.
And that a topic as mundane as this is somehow 'must watch' UA-cam. Amazing channel.
I'm actually pressing the like button for this one
It's something that I rarely do
No effort means minimal research
One thing I love about mechanical engineering is just because the operation may be simple does not mean the explanation is simple. To properly explain a clock on a switch we have to talk about line frequency, and cam actions, and spring tension.....I mean, I like it.....then again watching someones eyes glaze over 3 sentences into explaining how something works is entertaining to me too so......😄
When I was a kid we called those "coffee timers", at least in my family. Namely, it was a timer into which you plugged the coffee pot. A few years ago I went to the store and asked where they had "coffee timers". They looked at me like I was speaking Greek.
Seen them on ovens in Europe but its been decades
christmas tree timers for me!
My Mom would use them on crock pots and toaster ovens while we went out for the day.
Looking back, we are lucky the house didn't burn down.
never heard it called coffee timer but remember as a kid seeing my parents use one to turn a coffee pot off and on. later in life I would buy one myself to use on a christmas tree and outdoor lighting.
I always thought they were internet router times. Shows the eras we grew up in.
If you want to store the tabs and not mess up the timing, just put both « on » tabs next to each other and both « off » tabs next to each other. Since they won’t mess up the actual timing, you can just use the spaces between the first on/off switches as storage.
I feel this is how they came up with design 2
I always liked how these very old timers with mechanical switches had a bit of natural variance in their on/off times as they worked to overcome the force of toggling... A little deviation in the times can make for a more natural look than hard-timed perfection of newfangled digital timers. (Although now we have programmed-in randomness on some units I've seen, to make lights look more "human" which is also neat)
why was it i read this referring to alec as a very old timer..... hah thanks dev
Are timelock safes a real thing and do they use just as simple a mechanism?
Ya know, my digital timers have drift as well, it's just much less and only needs to be corrected a couple times a year.
I get a kick out of the drift tho from both kinds, I like the small variation introduced since it causes my various pet enclosures to light up at slightly different times. Given that there are so many of them we don't really use ceiling lights, it's a nice organic effect every morning and night.
@@ZeroTooL88 There are rather cheap ones obtainable on the consumer market- while I can't really think of any "normal person" application they don't seem to be all that safe overall and seemingly use a similar timer design
@@zechsblack5891 Its less about clock drift, and more about the lack of precision of the tabs that flick the switch. Due to the extremely slow moving clock dial combined with the springs-overcoming-friction nature of the switch, there will be some day-to-day imprecision in the time the switch flips even if the clock doesn't drift. If you are using this device to turn lights on and off when you aren't home as a burglar deterrent, the imprecision is actually a win.
The removable tabs can be stored on the timer. Just insert all the spare "on" taps into a time span where its already on, and the spare off ones into a time span where its already off. This has issues if you only want it to be on or off for a very short period each day, but otherwise works pretty well (or at least it did for me back when I used the exact timer you showed). Sadly they tended to wear out pretty fast when used 24/7. Great for seasonal use though.
Yep! I used to do the same. :)
there is also an intermediate model with metal tbs instead of plastic ones.
@@kenbrown2808 Ooh! Classy.
I came here to comment the same thing XD
I had two of those Intermatic timers with the green and red tabs, and it was so poorly made that the pressure of the tabs on the switch would occasionally push the tab out of the wheel. Not enough that it fell on the floor or anything, but enough that it wouldn't actuate anymore. They were just too loose on the wheel. So I'd put the extra tabs as close as possible to the ones I actually wanted to trigger the timer, and if I saw it was running late, I knew the first had popped out. That's a "you had ONE job" situation.
Hey, it's the timer I sent you like 3 years ago! 😅
Thank you so much for such a cool video involving the old 1970's timer. Your "why are electric switches clicky" video had just come out and I figured you might find something interesting to say about the mechanism. Wow, wasn't expecting a whole video on timer switches as I didn't think there was much to them! Also total win on the plug detents.
Thanks, Mike.
Thanks buddy. My mom used that same exact timer to fire up her coffee maker every day of my childhood, so this brought back a ton of memories.
These things are nigh on indestructible as well, it was in use well into the mid 2000s when she finally forked out for a coffee maker with a built in clock.
Three years? I guess Alec could have timed this better.
he dredged it up for this video 😎 nice gift !
Better late than never.
The absolutely ceaseless smattering of puns is why I love this channel.
I love puns
@@ttrev007 Especially corny puns, because they are amaizing!
The 'unhinged' sentence activated my Douglas Adams fan circuits.
Did you spot the extra puns in the captions? And if you watch this channel without captions, you are missing some great content.
And spoonerisms. e.g. ‘phosistication.”
You can store the removable tabs right next to the in-use tabs. For example put 3 ON tabs together right after the desired ON time and 3 OFF tabs together right after the desired OFF time. That's what I do for my outdoor landscape light transformer timer.
I would be willing to say Intermatic likely was the first company that made timer switches. They are still around today making things like pool timers, but their staple is delay on, delay off, and even more sophisticated relays!
EDIT: Tab storage - It's literally right there!!!! To store the tabs, you set the tab for on, and then place the rest of the "on" tabs in the section where it will be on... Then set your off time and place the remaining "off" tabs in the section where it will be off. Too bad they never bothered to put that in the instructions...
I am mildly upset that this thought hadn't occurred to me even remotely... another day that I realize how dumb I am xDDD
Telechron had a timer clock ( like the 8B53) that could turn a radio or other appliance on and off multiple times by the late 1930's.
Unless you want whatever thing you're switching to be on or off for a short period of time, so the space between on and off tabs would be too narrow to fit the unused tabs
@@NanoMan737400 Picky, picky, picky... Oh, wait, this is Technology Connections and 99% of the regulars here consider this normal. 😁
P. S. One feature of these timers is that some of them, all in my case, have motors that start to get noisy after a few years. I get a new quiet one, but keep the old one on the floor underneath it and use it to store my unused tabs.
Thanks. We've been taping them to the side of the timer for years.
Something I love about your videos (among other things) is how there's a sort of "Technology Connections curriculum," for a lack of a better words, that builds off of previous knowledge I already know (or have the opportunity to learn by clicking the i card). There's almost a certain chronology to it, yet it doesn't necessitate watching every video in order. Additionally, this enhances my knowledge about all of the *connections* between various *technologies.* Hmm, I guess that's why it's called that...
it's truly the Good Eats of things you can't or at least shouldn't eat.
To fully understand the curriculum, you must understand latent heat and the refrigeration cycle.
Technology Connections has probably taught me more than my almost 2 yrs of college 😅
Technological progress is knowledge building on top of previous knowledge. You may have first realized this concept through videos but it's the entire way that science works.
Half of your videos I'm excited to learn how a thing works. The other half I'm like, "yeah, yeah, I bet I know how this works," but then not only do I still learn a whole bunch, but you make it entertaining. You rock :)
The best ones are the ones where I'm like, "I have never stopped to think about how this works yet I understand it perfectly."
A sign of a great teacher: they can teach you what you already know and still keep your interest.
and the puns.........
@@MutheiM_Marz And the callbacks to previous episodes.
Thank you for always making me interested in things I never even notice. These devices are so standard in terrarium or aquarium setups that I took them for granted. They're surprisingly nifty!!
It is kind of heart warming to see how much well deserved attention is given to such a humble everyday item. I can almost see them blush as you present their simple innards.
Well put hahah
I'd blush too if someone was showing off my innards in a youtube video.
Simple, yet ingenious!
I like getting up in them guts. 😁
After rewatching the "holes in plugs" video just yesterday, I was not expected to find relief from my resulting frustration so soon and surprising.
I was wondering if the retaining dimples are there because the plug is going to be inserted vertically, which is presumably fairly unusual? (Here in Britain our plug-in timers and similar in-line gadgets nearly always have the socket on the front face, because the cord exits the plug at right angles.)
I too find relief from my frustration by plugging holes
I'm glad that you found receptacles that engage with the holes in the plugs! You and I both seem to have been suspicious about this for years (well, more years for me), so it's nice to find at least something that actually uses the holes.
All my grandfather's extension cords had locking sockets that used the holes on the plugs. They were old in the 80's, and I've never seen one since.
Outdoor sockets on a LOT of things, from stakes for the yard lighting to extension cords and even a few "exterior grade" outlets had internal bits to interact with the holes on plugs. I think it also had to do with light vs medium vs heavy duty definitions as well. The idea was to exploit them so the plugs could be forcefully (albeit only lightly) retained against dropping on the ground and getting walked on or rolled over by vehicles and other equipment...
I can't recall seeing any since about the mid 90's... ;o)
I also noted that the holes are chamfered which I've never seen before. So not only are they using the holes but is enhanced to make even better contact.
I always enjoy your comedic timing. It runs until the moment just before it becomes tremendous cringe and then moves on. Dunno how that timing gets nailed down but I like it
I like it too. When I first started watching this channel it would turn me off. Perhaps it took a minute for Alec to hone his craft, but it sure is awesome now.
Hahahaha when he says 69000 haha nice
...with a timing switch of course. How else?
Like clockwork.
I’d really love to see an ice maker episode! They’ve always fascinated me and it would be very cool to see you do it!
Well if any episodes of the TV show deconstructed have ever been uploaded to UA-cam I'm pretty sure you can find the episode of there about that particular device because I distinctly remember there being an episode on ice makers
Pun intended?
I'm so happy to have stumbled upon your channel a couple months ago. I've learned so many things about the complexity of things I took for granted. And I find myself more curious than ever about how things work nowadays.
The ones with the individual pins that pull out are handy to use with an iron that doesn't have an auto-off switch. When using your iron, just plug it into a timer that only has Off pins set. Set the Off pin for the maximum time you'll be using the iron. If you forget to unplug the iron or turn it off, you have a safety backup.
... or for not much more you could buy a good iron like the Panasonic NI-W810CS which lets you iron your clothes faster and if your time is worth anything will pay for itself in no time flat.
Our iron doesn't have an auto-off switch, yet we never have had a problem of leaving the iron on.
How is this possible? Small house. We have to do the ironing in the hallway. And the iron gets stored in the hallway linen closet.
Even tho the house is small, the cord of the iron is not long enough to let us store the iron with it plugged in and potentially on.
And there's not enough room in the hall to let us leave the ironing table standing in the hall unnecessarily.
So whenever we're done ironing clothes, we put the iron and ironing table away right after.
The iron is never in a state where it can be left on unattended because of this.
I think this can be made to work even in larger houses with a dedicated laundry room where you could feasibly leave the ironing table standing up all the time, all you need to do is build up a habit of always unplugging the iron when you're done using it.
I am baffled that modern hair appliances don't have built-in auto-off technology. About once every other week my wife leaves her flat iron on. It's not gonna burn anything down, but it is starting to turn the white countertop a brownish hue.
@@fearlessfreep They do make them. I have one. I hate it. If I plug it in to heat it up, and get distracted away from it, it turns off. Then when I'm ready to use it, it's cold and I have to turn it on again and wait for it to heat up again... Making me late.
BTW this, what I have, is not "a timer" to set an exact time but just an auto-off built into it, but the annoyance would be the same with a timer. My iron does the same thing: If I walk away to hang clothes and it takes a while to reorganize stuff when I get back to the iron it's off and not hot enough to iron with.
@@marciaoh7056 You just need the auto-off to be a longer time.
These sort of devices are quite common in Finland, where places like workplace or some apartment parking lots need to be able to heat up cars at winter! I remember freezing my fingers off every time i had to figgle one of those to turn on at 4AM and off at 6AM when I was leaving my nightshifts at - 30°C. The warm car felt nice👌
sure but the analog ones are rare nowadays since it costs almost nothing to get a complete control loop automation taking into account data from some probes and sensors.
How does one warm up a parked car?
All the ones I've used here have been the analog kind, surprisingly! And to the person who asked how to warm up a parked car, you get a cable that runs from a little electric box at the parking, through one of these timers to the front of your car with a cable! That starts warming up the engine compartment of your car, and if you want to warm up the inside of the car as well, which I ALWAYS want to do, you plug a small heater into an outlet in the footwell of the front passanger seat. Once your car is plugged in, you can turn it on! 👌
@@Zummeli nice. Here in Australia the problem is a hot car not a cool car. If you're able to park in the shade (or a garage) it's reasonably comfortable getting in but a car left in the sun on a 40C day is no fun at all.
I've never seen a cooling setup like your heaters. I guess the fluids don't get hot enough to boil so it's never been necessary
@@dielaughing73 yeah, the temps can get to -25C in southern Finland during the winter, even colder in the North since its in the Arctic Circle
I use an outdoor version of the 3rd mechanical one with the 48 pins to control my pool pump. I have it set to run for one hour at 3 different times each day. Pretty handy and quite reliable!
Yup, my pool filter/pump controller has a couple big fancy high amperage ones of these (in reality the internals are probably practically identical… hate to think what that relay looks like inside) built in for controlling the heat pump and filter.
Back, I don´t remember when, I was called to a village in Germany where clocks went haywire when it was raining. Reason was that they had a pump for their high water protection system. The pump was controlled by a variable frequency drive. The drive was a thyristor drive, that, while running, induced interferences in the power grid of the village. The clocks then saw a grid frequency of 100 Hz, instead of 50 Hz, So, while the drive was running, the clocks went at twice the normal speed. A LC filter got rid of the problem
I can't believe how you weren't absolutely furious with how these digital timers are unintuitive. Maybe it's just these I have ever used. And as always, amazing video!
My stepdad was OBSESSED with these things! We had, at minimum 8 different lights attached to separate timers at all times. I'm not sure if he wanted to make it look like people were always home or just didn't like turning on the lights manually lol! Major flashbacks as soon as you pulled out that Intermatic one!
I’ve got that timer with the lose-able blades! I found that since having multiple on or off blades in a row doesn’t affect anything, I’d store all of the off next to each other, and all of the on next to each other. Only an issue if you wanted the on/off cycle to be 15 mins.
But this explains the hum from it! I figured it was related to the grid hz, but didn’t really register that there’s an entire motor in there!!!
We've had a electromechanical timer switch used to start the washing machine during the (cheaper) night tarriff wear out... the plastic sensor finger got worn off so far over the years it did not switch anymore.
I was hoping you would cover my favorite doo--dad, the timer I use for my holiday (Halloween and Chrismas) lights: it plugs into the wall (or in my case my outdoor plug) and has three outlets on it. It also has a dial that allows you to either turn it on, or set it to 2, 4, 6, 8 or "all night". It has an electric eye that detects when it gets dark and turns on the lights for the specified time. It is one of the most insanely useful things I have ever bought...
Yeah, and the sun also does this thing where it goes behind clouds, which can occasionally trip the photocells even when there's enough light to see or worse cause them to flicker erratically.
I worked with a variant of those devices at a hotel: it was an alarm clock with slidable tabs all around the dial at fifteen minute intervals. We used it to make manual wake-up calls to rooms. Each tab set would make it buzz until we hit a switch to silence it, then we would look at a list to see which rooms to call. Four-star service, baby!
I have had that second white one my entire life and since it’s the only one I’ve ever needed I thought it was the pinnacle of outlet timer technology. The digital one blew my mind!😂
A bigger cousin to these would be older mechanical traffic controllers. They have a timer that rotates continuously and has tabs set at various places to adjust the percentage of time for a given indication. The actual sequence of lights is controlled by the cam, which is stepped each time a timer tab trips the switch. Thus with two systems, the timer and the cam, you have a unit that can control in what order the lights go and for how long each step is. Acme School has an episode on them, but it would be neat to see you do your take on them as well since you have the traffic modules in the back wall display.
I hope he'll do a video on those. They're wonderfully complex, especially since they have a lot of safety mechanisms to prevent things like an all-green situation.
Electromechanical traffic controllers could be synchronized as long as they were on the same distribution circuit. Traffic Engineers used to synchronize lights by pulling and plugging fuses. It doesn't work between circuits because there is enough inherent variance between distribution transformers to allow the timing to drift.
That's remarkably similar to the timers that sirens would use for noon/curfew blasts. A clock that would momentarily close a contact at a certain time or times, and a timer that used cams and microswitches for the signal timing and duration, and possibly controlling a coding damper if the siren had one.
Damn, quick, someone ship him one of those 4 ft high, 300 lb traffic light controllers.
We have almost that exact third timer (with the depressible switches) and it is connected to a floor lamp that clicks on at 7:30 AM and wakes me up, and shuts itself off at 8:30 AM. In combination with a Fitbit and a silent alarm, mornings are much more pleasant now. Instant sunrise!
I applaud you for having the patience to deal with that one. My family used the second one for years and recently bought that one when it broke. have been super frustrated since!
So some years ago I was going on a little over 2 week vacation in winter, and wanted hot water ready for tea on my return home.
So I plugged my ELECTRIC KETTLE, switched on, into a mechanical 24hr timer like this set at just before midnight programmed to switch on at "2am". I then plugged that timer into a digital weekly timer set to run for exactly 1 hour at just before the time & day-of-week I was set to arrive home. And I left.
A couple of days later, 2 weeks before my return, the digital timer turned on for exactly 1 hour, which advanced the mechanical timer to just before 1 am, and then shut off.
A week later, and 1 week before my return, the digital timer again turned on for an hour and ran the mechanical timer to just before 2 am.
And then another week later, just before my return time from the airport, the digital timer fired up for another hour. A few minutes later the mechanical timer finally got to "2am" and turned on the full kettle which boiled the water and then, after waiting over 2 weeks, finally clicked off.
The result: my tea water was boiled and ready perfectly on cue waiting for me to arrive. Which I did many hours later due to a delayed flight. Aww shucks.
I have the second timer. You store the extra tabs by just plugging them into the dial. As you pointed out, they perform a no-op if they are on a part of the dial where the event they handle is already triggered.
I love these silly timers and always wondered how they worked. My grandma had pin-based ones, eventually upgraded to digital (which I had to program for her!). Now that im a responsomable adulting person, I decided to go for a basic "built-in pins" version for my xmas light festivities. And thanks for pinning the comment about wattage - I hooked my watt monitor up to see what the tree uses (btw, YIKES, 180w), and was surprised that the timer itself consumed a few watts. Mine also makes a faint but clearly audible ticking noise, and now that you showed me the gear box, I know why! Thanks!
These videos are always so interesting, and I always look forward to your deep dives into historical tech. They remind me of episodes of the old British show The Secret Life of Machines.
I remember having these as a kid. I was born in the mid-80s, and I remembering playing with them in my earliest memories. They were already considered old at that point, so your assessment of them being from the 70s seems in line with that. The non-polarized plug thing made them tricky even back then.
I’m 47 and those Intermatics gave me a powerful blast of nostalgia. My grandfather used to use those a bunch in his house. I remember walking around as a little kid thinking they looked so cool and complicated. Got older, he passed, and I found a few of his laying around. They are very cool, and fairly bullet proof. I’d much much rather have that ‘70s Intermatic than the one with the digital programmable display. Those are a pain to program.. and then after you learn it you forget the next year when you have to do it again. Now a days of course, smart home IoT devices do all this. Yep, nostalgia.
@@andymerrett I find the old ones are rock solid as far as time keeping goes whereas the new ones with the quartz crystals tend to drift. Sure, it's only about 15 minutes a year but if you have one you leave on all the time you do have to reset it after a while.
I'm your age and have had to use timers quite a lot (ok, i haven't always had to use them but since they are around...).. You are right about the digital timers, trying to program them using only two buttons is a nightmare and so i use mechanical timers if current allows it. Also, the digital timers still use a battery backup and those can crap on you...
The next timer is going to be WiFi but NOT IoT... Do not buy IoT if you don't need it, the security on those are abysmal. WiFi or Bluetooth is usually all you need anyway.
Feh! Whippersnappers...
You can bet I'm going to remember and use "morpho-sisticated".
@@squidcaps4308 What's IoT in your opinion that WiFi isn't already?
I hope you do a video on electronic pocket dictionaries and spell checkers one day, those were so neat. Love your channel!
I had one credit card sized and one calculator sized .. one could even play hangman on these :)
Those spell checkers were handy back in the day. We used a Franklin Spelling Ace. Our earliest word processing software didn't have a spell check built into it.
Looks like it's time for 'Just the right amount of effort' January.
I have both of the 'modern' versions of the timer switches in use in my house, and found that doubling up the green/red tabs so that both 'on' or 'off' instances occur in succession is a handy way of storing the tabs without impacting the functionality.
The only issue I have with these is that some of the heating pads I want to use them with require a manual power button press on the cord to turn on due to a safety feature. I guess we're not phosisticated enough to have that work just yet.
Exactly, the dial itself is the tab storage so long as your ON/OFF window is long enough to store all the remaining ON/OFF tabs.
You know, depending on what you're using those heating pads for, you could probably find ones purpose designed for 2x the cost (or more), but at least they will be "dumb" as in they'll just start working when the power is turned on.
Or you know, if you're not using it for people you could probably connect one of these timer switches to a small patch of tile that has electric floor heating grids installed in it, with that tile patch providing the heat to whatever you're trying to heat currently with heating pads.
Alternatively, you might see if you can open up the control box of those heating pads and short out the button that turns it on, that way it turns on whenever it gets power with no intervention needed (but it might not be that simple)
@@44R0Ndin The heating pads are for sphynx cats, so they need access to them when they want to nap, but shouldn't remain on 24/7. The current best solution is to use the 'dumb' style of heating pads inside insulated cat beds so that they don't need to stay turned on in order to stay warm. We use the 'smart' ones with a 2 hour shutoff as one-offs when needed, but it would be nice to have those automated as well.
the big brother of this is the sangamo weston street light timer and outdoor lighting timer, its excetionally well made and the on/off tabs are moved mechanically by some extra curved metal pieces to account for seasonal variation in dawn/dusk. Thinking of carparks they even added a little wheel to exclude days of the week. Everything in it is mechanical and basic but btilliant. its been updated over the years but i like the 70s versions the best
I like the mention of the use for sign lighting. Having worked in the sign business most of my life, I can definitely say that photocells are not a great solution as they do not last long at all. Most people who want to go the route of photocells instead of timers do it just because it’s cheaper and doesn’t require access into the breaker panel. I will always try to pitch timers just because of their reliability
Do the photocells not last long because they're of a cheap make or is it all the photocells no matter the quality that are impacted ?
(I mean, lots of streetlights use photocells).
I think a lot of it comes down to a cheap make because of it being such a widely used solution. The ones in street lights that I also work on seem to last quite a bit longer than the standard 120 volt photocells, even from the same manufacturer@@psirvent8
A great and phosisticated video! A german Wiki article about „Zeitschaltuhren“ (timed switching clocks) dates the first iterations in the first half of the last century
Hmm... there were sundial cannons, over 400 years ago - which went "bang" every noon. That's kinda the same?
Or... what about flowers that open and close each day?
The oldest clock switch I've ever owned was from my grand father's chicken coop.
Looking back I think it pre dated WW2. It was a large black metal case with an actual pendulum clock inside and a small 24 hour dial with metal arrows you could set to program on and off times.
Too bad I threw it away somewhere in the mid eighties :(
I have one similar to that (it's missing the case) that operates on a mainspring. It has an actual snap switch that it activates. I'm guessing it's pre-1930, but would be willing to bet it's WW1 era. It sits in a box because I can't find anyone to replace the balance spring.
@@devildog1912 Try reaching out to @Clickspring
He might find it interesting enough to want to help?
Alec, it is unbelievable to me how we have at some point in our lives probably had the same ward niche interest in some seemingly mundane object and this is another one. I've gone through periods of mini obsessions with timer switches several times, to the point that I have a collection of them. Tons of intermatic Time-All's and plenty of other weird ones, like one particularly unique very old 1930's? Art Deco one with a mechanical wind up clock, I love these things!
Make a video of them
Gotta say, I agree with you on the pleasing simplicity of a timer that just is clock-switch and nothing else.
I remember those mechanical timers well, mainly because my parents had a handful of them around the house when I was growing up, and KEPT them around for years. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they still have at least one of them in a drawer somewhere, and that they've actually used it to turn their lights on when on vacation in recent years. They were very much like that first timer you demonstrated, though I don't think any of them were that exact model. But it's really cool now to finally see how they work!
I honestly never thought that hard about how the old-school non-digital timer switches actually work. So this was interesting.
these things go way back, there are also the hard wired full metal type. Also, I love when you pull something out and its the exact model I've had around the house basically my whole life lol
I was SHOCKED to see no Smart Electrician logos on the last two timers brought out. I just know how much Alec loves that specific Midwest home improvement store chain.
I’ve got my “everything in this paper bag is 15% off” ready to go.
I do occasionally shop there, but really can't stand the owner's politics. So I don't typically go there unless I'm in a hurry or they're the only place that has what I need.
Save big money!
@Zakir Siddiqui Sadly, they probably all do. I just don't have specific info on the evils of the other ones yet...
@@strehlow As long as the politics are quirky or extreme enough, I actually prefer it. Bring on your flat earth and excessive firearms, much more interesting than boring normality.
I've got a bunch of the type with the removable tabs. We put them on a few lights any time we'll be out of town for more than a few days so lights come on and off, making it look like people are home to reduce the chance of someone
attempting to burgle.
Also useful for my grow lights I use to grow herbs in the winter (no window sunlight here in NY winter).
Oh yah -- my stepmom uses those on grow lights for her plant seedlings, before she plants them in the garden.
I just bought my first house, a 1952 bungalow. I wish I could have you just be a consultant on my renovations. Your videos have been an invaluable asset!
It's so satisfying that the 48-tab design has barely changed in 40+ years! The one we bought for our Christmas lights differs only aesthetically from the ones my mom had for her Christmas lights.
It also will not change for the next 40 years.
Alec, you amaze me every time with the topic you cover on your channel, you talk about everyday objects that like almost everyone has at home. And they're incredibly interesting. This video inspired me to check out what kind of different timer switches I have at home, just gotta find 'em lol
Really enjoy these deep dives into every day items. Your presentation is perfect
I love these analog, ultra-mechanical timers. I have that first one and it's great for setting up an indoor grow lamp for plants.
Picked up a basic timer, like the one with built in pegs you showed, at Christmas for my tree lights. Cost £3 from the local hardware shop. So cheap and simple. They even had a version with a week timer on it, instead of 24hr. Just meant the outside wheel moved very slowly as they’d squeezed in an entire week on it.
I swear when I was a kid (late 80's early 90's) we had a timer that looked very similar to the first one but with removable metal tabs. It was in the laundry room. I think it somehow was wired up with the hot water tank outside so it would stop heating around midnight and then kick back in around 5 in the morning. But it's been so long I couldn't be a reliable source. Also I was 10 the last time I saw that thing.
Yes; the one with the removable metal tabs predates the "slide the tab" version by quite a while. We had one of those that ran the outdoor Christmas lights, then ran my mom's Gro-Light some weeks later when she started her seeds for the garden. You actually pulled the dial out of the unit to change the tabs. For manual use, you pulled it out slightly.
We had that timer switch since at least the early '70s. The sliding tab ones didn't come out until the late '70s or early '80s.
My parents are *still* using that 50 year old timer for Christmas lights; however, it's just the window decorations now.
I have an intermatic like that for my pool pump. Little thumbscrews on the tabs, and a lever that gets flipped by them. Same lever is also a manual switch. And you pull the face out and rotate it to set the time.
That timer is on a recirculating pump for your water heater. So it will circulate hot water when you need it.
To keep from losing the little on/off pegs, I used to put the on pegs next to each other on the time wheel. I then can move them if need a second time segment.
Was going to comment this, storing them as "superfluous tabs" was always my solution.
I also love how through the video there is this much needed theme of "technology is becoming overcomplicated" going through it. Like not everything needs wifi and an app to work. And in fact, it makes it more likely to break and fail.
When doing a google search you can add a - sign with a word after it at the end to exclude that word from your search. So if you're searching for switches for example you could add -nintendo to the end.
Variants of the third design are common as muck in the UK, albeit with 96 tabs (15 minute intervals) - but as they age, the gearing becomes increasingly loud, so I relegated them to controlling porch / outdoor Christmas lights, and bought the fourth type for indoors.
Exactly the same situation in Germany. The one I bought was quite noisy from the start, but it only cost about 3€, so I never expected high quality! ;-)
A little grease on the gears usually allows them to run quieter.
@@rootbrian4815 It's not squeaking though, it's clicking, so I suppose grease won't do anything about that. At the moment I don't need the thing though, so I can't be bothered to test it ;-)
I still have one of those Intermatic timers. I used to use it to control my outdoor Christmas lights. And yeah, those little tabs can be lost easily.
i rarely saw these things growing up. i thought they were neat but i was also curious how they worked for the exact amount of time they were in my field of view. thanks for the awesome videos on interesting stuff as well as a bonus bloopers! :D
Another enjoyable dive into a common, overlooked household gadget. I really like the early "pre wall wart" style Intermatic Time-Alls that sat on a table and had a power cord. Just neater IMO.
Basically ALL AC powered electro-mechanical clocks were driven by synchronous motors. They kept perfect time and only had to be reset when there was a power failure. Early digital clocks that plugged into wall power counted 60 cycles for their time bases. Even today, some AC - wall powered clocks still count the 60 Hz power. Crystals just aren't as accurate for long term time keeping.
Great topic, and great video, as always!
My family has been using these kinds of timers since the late 1960s, when my grandparents first found out about them. (Religious Jews don't turn electrical things on and off on sabbath and holidays, so we use these timers to make life on those days more convenient.) After doing a bit of research to identify the picture burned into my brain, I think my grandparents' first one was an Intermatic Time-All Model A-211, which had a power cord, stood upright on molded-in feet, looked something like a big alarm clock and had the override switch on the right side. That timer might've outlasted my grandparents.
My wife bought a timer exactly like your first one when she was in college in the mid 1980s. She still had it when we got married, and we used it (dare I say religiously? 🤣) for about 20 years, at which point it failed. I don't remember if one of the plastic parts of the switch broke off or the motor burned out, but whatever killed it, she definitely got her money's worth out of it.
At some point, I bought two timers exactly like your second. Each came with two sets of trippers, and I did exactly what you implied in the video, and when I needed one of the timers to turn a light on and off three times over a 24-hour period, I borrowed two trippers from the other timer. I also discovered, as you mentioned, that those trippers are ridiculously easy to lose, so at this point I think I have one timer with two sets of trippers on its dial and the other has two OFF triippers (but no ON trippers) on its dial. Oh, well...
I also have timers similar to, but not exactly like, your last two. In addition, I have one programmable in-wall timer that replaces a light switch. Acquiring that was something of a production. My first such timer was a relatively simple model that got its power from the household current. That was fine until CFL spiral bulbs that fit into most fixtures came out, and I quickly discovered that my wall timer was incompatible with those. Apparently, it depended on the filament resistance of incandescent bulbs in some way, and having even one CFL in my dining room chandelier caused all the bulbs to flicker and the timer to make funny noises. So, I had to stick with incandescent bulbs in that fixture until I discovered a wall timer that used a pair of AA batteries to run the clock and operate a mechanical switch to turn the lights on and off. That worked fine no matter what kind of bulbs I put in the light fixture. It was a bit annoying in that the switch made a curious sound when turned the lights on or off, which took some getting used to, and it went through several sets of batteries per year. It lasted for about 10 years, after which the plastic hook that held the battery compartment in broke, and I had to replace it. The updated model offers relatively complex programming, auto daylight savings time adjustment (obsolete since the last DST rules change), switching the lights at dawn and dusk, and a lot of other features. It uses some sort of camera battery instead of AAs, but it also uses a more efficient electronic switch instead of a mechanical one, so each battery lasts several years.
I have to ask: do you (or your grandparetns) use the sabbath mode on your oven? I actually mistakenly discovered this on the oven in my last house when I hit some combination of the buttons and it suddenly showed "sbt" or some such on the display and I had to go dig the instruction manual out of the basement to figure out what happened and how to cancel it...
@@jimbarino2, funny you should ask that. My brothers and at least one of my sisters use sabbath mode on their ovens at least once every week. I use it on mine occasionally, but my wife has to ask me to turn it on for her, because she has never successfully done so. Sabbath mode, which is actually something of a misnomer, does two things. First, it enables the oven to stay on longer than 12 hours, give or take. Second - and this is why it's a bit of a misnomer - is that it provides a means for changing the temperature of the oven on Jewish holidays (but NOT on the sabbath) within the confines of Jewish law.
I remember these timers. I remember my grandparents using these back in the 70’s to deter possible thieves. If they saw lights coming on and going off they would think someone was home.
We use one with removable tabs for our electric water heater. In that case, there's no outlet 'cause it's directly wired. Your older video on how the US gets 240V power actually helped me diagnose an issue we were having where the heater was only connected to Ground, +120V, and neutral instead of +120V, -120V, and ground like it was supposed to be, and so we weren't getting enough hot water. Very helpful video, thanks!
Mechanical ones are really practical and have a user interface that is hard to beat. The digital ones seem versatile, but one has to figure out how to set it up.
Yeah, great for people who want or need the extra degree of control, but for me it gives me anxiety just thinking about needing to think that hard to program an outlet timer.
Agree!! I once had a digital timer whose buttons were so tiny that you ended up with dents in your fingers after setting it up... Always prefer mechanical - unless you have a power cut of course!
This is by far, my favorite youtube channel. Never stop what you do.
My grandparents have the second timer shown, and I see it lying around every time I visit them, but never investigated its inner workings. So cool!
mechanical timers are great. I'd actually use them, if those motors wouldn't produce noise 24/7. So digital it is for me! (also I'm now somewhat hooked onto home automation - so now everything is digital for me, comes at double the price and I'm constantly switching batteries and wondering why nothing works. FUN!)
I've used most of those. Most recently for a small lamp in the living room which turns on every night. I *hated* climbing under the table twice a year to adjust for DST so I ended up going with a smart outlet that I had sitting around. Say what you want, but adjusting the on/off time from your phone can certainly be an advantage over poking buttons under a table!
I don't like using smart devices, but the ability to adjust to the exact sunset and sunrise is hard to beat.
5:13 nice
It's 2023, this video is more phosisticated than the older ones.
"Like a door that's left its frame, that intro was unhinged"
You sir, are a national treasure
Finding a device that uses the spade holes is honestly very exciting.
If it helps at all to narrow down the date of which your timer was manufactured...
Your timer, a Intermatic Corporation Time-All (Model D111) was introduced during the 1970s (hence your beloved woodgrain in the trim for the model name). I don't know when in the 1970s it was produced, but it was during the 1970s... like maybe 1970-1979 or within that timeframe.
Hope this helps, Allec! :)
The ones I use in the UK are at bit like the third one you showed except they have like a hundred tiny little tabs you push down or leave up so you can do more complex on and off cycles for various reasons, like making it look more convincing that someone is in. I use one to run my old fridge that has a broken thermostat or somthing so freezes everything and runs constantly, I have it turn on for 15mins off for 30 and it works perfectly keeping the fridge at an appropriate temperature. Of course there are digital ones now but the ones I have work fine.
I bought a temperature controller board from China for $3. Used an old lamp cord to power it. It has a display and programable settings (buttons). Two temperature probes were included. Simple wiring but only displays in Celsius. I use it to control temperature in my fish tank.
You could use this to control temperature _precisely_ or to turn on a lamp if your freezer gets too warm, or both if you get the proper board.
I mounted mine in a plastic 5.25" hard drive case ($1.50).
I have one on my boiler (bypassed for a smart thermostat now). I can see it being handy if you need more than one or two periods, like morning, evening, and lunchtime?
When I had a car with a block heater, I had one of these set up to start the heater some time before I needed to leave. Helped immensely when it was -30 Freedom units out one morning.
Excellent video! A great use for these timers today are for pets! I have 2 similar ones to the 3rd 48-tab version. 1 is for the basking and UV lamps for my Russian Tortoise and the other for my fish tank lights. I set them to turn on the lights during the day and off when it gets dark so I don't have to do it manually. It's very convenient!
Since you were wondering, the wires probably aren't soldered. It's a technique called wire wrapping which predates the widespread use of solder and still is used occasionally to connect components that don't take solder well. Although, it normally works best on leads with a square cross section as it bites into the wrapped wire a bit better.
yup wrapping was a huge trend decades ago. With squared pins and the appropriate tool it makes very reliable contacts. Now it's mostly used when solder melting is a concern.
Maybe you should look into mechanical sprinkler timers? I have always found them very interesting, especially the RainBird RC series.
IIRC, they work with a tiny bit of the water pressure. They leak just a slight bit of water out to move the clock movement. I imagine you must adjust the speed of them to your municipal water pressure however. Newer ones are electronic
".00069, nice, rpm..." Child :-P
Never claimed to not be!
Neat teardown, I'm liking "November in January"!
I once built a few "industrial grade" electromechanical timer units for a client who owned a quality control company. They tested fabric samples (among a variety of other things) for parameters like durability, colourfastness, and resistance to colour fade in strong sunlight which was simulated by exposing samples to a bank of powerful UV lamps for a calculated period of time. They were using typical off-the-hardware-store-shelf electromechanical timers for the lamps as Alec demonstrates here, but they kept failing as the high inrush current of the lamp ballasts exceeded the switch contact rating in these consumer-grade units... they would arc every time they switched on and eventually weld themselves closed, even though the steady-state current draw was only about 6A per unit (well below the 10A @ 240V nominal rating which is standard for consumer power outlets and switching hardware here in Australia).
I couldn't do anything to limit the inrush current to the ballasts because then the lamps wouldn't strike and could possibly sustain damage or have a reduced lifespan, and these lamps were _expensive_ , like "replacement lamp for your high-end home theatre projector" type of money. So I sourced some "Heavy Duty" electromechanical timer modules from Farnell (now Element14) which had a peak rating of 16A for the switch contacts and a nominal rating of 12A. They were of the type that feature two concentric rings of closely-spaced holes on the timer dial - one for On times and the other for Off times - which accept metal pins to set the program. The closeness of the hole spacing allowed for control of on/off intervals down to 5 minutes i.e. 12 divisions per hour in each of the "On" and "Off" rings, which suited the application perfectly. There was a very simple "pin sliding in slot" type of flush-mounted manual override switch on the side of the unit, and nice chonky screw terminals for the mains wiring. They were not cheap.
The programming pins were incredibly easy to lose (even though there were a few additional holes on the face of the unit to store unused pins) and they were a bit fiddly to use when setting timing intervals but apart from that it was a pretty solid design, and in this application we were only interested in a few specific time periods so it was a set-and-forget kind of deal. Installed them in grounded metal enclosures into which I fitted heavy-duty mains input/switched output sockets and a suitably rated fuseholder + slow-blow fuse. As far as I'm aware, they were still working fine when he eventually wrapped up the company in the 2010s about a decade after I supplied them, and would probably have gone on for another couple of decades with no issues. There's something to be said for the reliability of the good ol' geared-synchronous-motor-just-flipping-a-switch design. :)
I love how simple this design is; it feels like something you might be charged with designing in some game about electrical engineering
Very cool! The design with the microswitch is actually used in some older commercial walk-in freezers. The HVAC system on the roof has this timer to set the de-icing stages of the freezer.
Edit: I should have watched the rest of the video... :|
Nice video. Did you ask Intermatic if they could help date the old timer? They are based in Chicago burbs.
I've had all of those kinds of timers since my family does a lot of gardening and we get the young plants started in the house under lights before transplanting them outside.
It pleases me to no end that Intermatic is still a functioning company.
OOOO MYYYYY 😆
Great video. As a part of my work I am represent Macromatic, which broke off from Intermatic to just serve the industrial and OEM market. Now I get people asking me for a timer and I need to ask them a series of questions (timer function, voltage, current, poles, time, physical configuration, oh look... A second time setting, and so on) to narrow down from 20,000 different models to the right one for their application. It's neat but also maddening.
Great video. Thanks.
thank you for all you do. i had one of those timers that had an option to change the on and off times daily randomly. have not seen one since the 1990's
Those built-in-tiny-tab designs used to be pretty common on household boilers in the UK. I've lived in flats with them, and they were a very handy way to pre-set having your heating come on in the winter. Much better than my current system, wherein my boiler reads the programme from a thermostat across the flat from it -- but sometimes decides to connect to my neighbour's thermostat instead, and heat to their programme instead of mine.
Meanwhile, I'm still enjoying a plug-in mechanical-tab timer switch in Scottish winters, which I have plugged into a SAD lamp so that it turns on before my alarm in the mornings, so I don't have to get up in the dark.
That gear-reduction cluster is needed to make the wheel rotate at the correct speed of 1 rpd, but it also adds a huge amount of mechanical advantage, allowing the tiny motor to easily push the levers or buttons in the crudely made device, which require some force to actuate.
We have some hybrid electronic/mechanical timers you might like. They use the same timer as that electronic one you showed, but instead of a relay they have a linear motor and mounting bracket for a light switch. When it's time to actuate the motor moves some bars with wheels which flips the switch.
One downside of these is that they lose time when there’s a power cut. When we bought our current house, we thought the heated towel rail
In the bathroom was defective, because it was hard wired to one of these under the house. I found the timer but there was no label saying what it was connected to - eventually I put it together.
I have the digital version of it (no need for gearing to wear out), which turns on and off, outside LED rope light I installed on my balcony. It's quite handy instead of letting it stay on during the day or manually un/plugging it. It's also due to the area lighting sometimes going out during a brownout.