Cottonpickers 7 Day USB Pi Timer!

[cottonpickers]

Hi Dirk,
Yes still selling these, with a whole box load just arrived from the factory , so I'm ready to ship

[cameron]

I notice there's now a version available for the old Pi's, and a different one for the A+ and B+. What's changed? I've got a couple of "old" timers and they seem to work fine with my A+ boards.

[cottonpickers]

AH! that's just the case for the Ver 7 Solar box that that the pi 'slots' into that is changed. The new versions of the pi are slightly different shape so I have to make a different 'holder' for the new ones. The new PIs are a little faster and about 50% more power efficient (so better match for solar) OH and they use microsd rather than sd.

[hazylium]

Hello!

I'm working on an Arduino-based environmental sensor project which could really use a USB Timer (I can put the Arduino to sleep, but I can't regulate the power supply to the sensor shield, which consumes a lot more power than the Arduino itself), and I'm wondering if your USB Pi Timer can be used in the following way:

- Start for 1 minute, stop for 14 minutes, repeat.

Would that be possible?

[cottonpickers]

Hi,
The timer can have up to 17 settings a day - I'm afraid it can't do quite what you need.

Maybe you could shut it off at night to save a lot of battery, and then have up to 16 more on off timings to save more battery and have your program still do the start and maybe wait 15 then do its thing again? (so that sometimes the timer switches it off fully, and other times it does not, but you still have it doing its thing every 15 mins. Hope that makes sense. Another possibly -connect two timers together to give you 34 (on/off settings)

[spdylude]

Hi,

Are these still for sale? Also, what is the maximum current the device can support?

Thanks!

[cottonpickers]

They are! - amazingly they are rated at 16 amps (!) but as I put 24awg wire on the port I would not recommend higher than 10amps - still a huge amount of current.

[solar777]

Hi! I purchased one of these 5V timers from you a while ago from eBay in the kit with A4 solar panel and project box.

It has been operating a remote pi project from solar for over 9 months (switching on/off 6 times per day) with no trouble (fantastic!).

Now I am wondering if I should replace the internal battery in the timer when I next go to service the installation.

Hoping you can answer:

1) You mention that the battery is self-charging. Does this mean it's been constantly recharging from solar? If so, how long could I expect the timer to continue working reliably in the field (with your A4 solar panel attached).

2) Exactly what kind of battery does the timer contain? (for when I do want to get a replacement).

Thanks in advance for your reply and great products.