Thread: Fogger Timer/Prop Timer Hack

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vonroll, here you go. All fixed. This is the diagram to have the timer work a light on for a short duration then off for the interval.



Basically the fix was just connecting the one wire to the NC insted of the NO on the relay.

Sorry about all the fuss. This was just very important for me to work out for a current project that needed a timer, now.

Jeff

i have a lightning prop that i run off of the timer in picture 1, it works just fine. what you have to do is fully power the timer and let it act as a switch for the outlet. so the hot and the common are live and the third wire from the timer runs to the outlet hot and the outlet neutral is attached to the live neutral as well. i'll see if i can get you some pics showing which is the switch wire.

If you are having any problems getting the WalMart timer to work properly, you may need to add a resistive load (I.E. a lightbulb) across your relay coil. I found that the Walmart Timers needed a little bit of a load on them before they would work properly. See the label on the back of you timer in the picture on the right. " Timer is designed to control a resistive load." Hope that helps...

Originally Posted by onedge30

vonroll, here you go. All fixed. This is the diagram to have the timer work a light on for a short duration then off for the interval.



Basically the fix was just connecting the one wire to the NC insted of the NO on the relay.

Sorry about all the fuss. This was just very important for me to work out for a current project that needed a timer, now.

Jeff

This particular hack didn't work for me. Maybe mine is a bit different.
Please see the attached photo - this does work for this model.

Pay close attention to the wire colors and observe the one amp limit.

Luckycat

Ok, i have read this more than a few times, but still do not understand. I have a home party dk-f006r fog machine & i am trying to hack in the heshan lide (fwc-4) timer. Can anyone please please help me?

rick12667, I've never wired anything to do with timers. The most I've ever done is wire up some vent motors to run continuously, so at this point it's all just a tad bit beyond my comprehension. In reading this thread, I can tell it's all pretty simple if you understand the language and the concepts. Put it this way, I've seen a picture of a really, but have no idea of its purpose, what it does, or the concept behind it. If you ever get the time, can you please post a step by step so someone like myself, or a 4 year old, could hack one of these, just as you did? Pictures would be really nice too. Pictures that I can color with crayons would be even better : ) The wiring diagrams everyone's posting, from my perspective, seem to be in Chinese. I'm sure there are a lot of us out there that would really love to have something like this to power our props, and would really appreciate being lead by the hand on how to do this.
Thanks, Ryan

This may not be entirely correct, but I think of a relay as a switch that operates another switch on another circuit. The circuits are isolated from each other with respect to energy. I'm going to be working on a hacked motion sensor relay/fog timer this weekend, and if I'm successful I'll see if I can add anything.

Great Big B, if you could do a how to, that would be great. In considering your audience, please remember, for some of us, changing the battery in the smoke detector is over our heads. Ha, I made a pun!

I've been trying to combine some of what is in this thread and here with the simple fogger trigger (which I'll admit is not really the scope of this thread). Basically using a relay to trigger the "fog now" button, but neither of the motion sensors I have have relays - they are some sort of solid state device. I'll break open my timer like the ones above tonight and see if I can make sense of it in the context of what people are trying to do in this thread.

I'm by no means an electrical expert, but take this in a light hearted way: If you aren't comfortable around electricity be careful with these things. I was shocked (ha!) to discover that the switches were running full 120v. I figured they would be stepped down somehow.

What is confusing most people with this hack is that the lights and or motion sensors are controled by switching the hot and that is typical for 120 volt controls. But most of these fog machines are controlled by switching the neutral via a button or timer that is why these hacks are using a relay added to the circuit. Also the relay increases the amount of current you can control. I hope that helps some of you.