bad cheap timers????
I need some green screen help.
I have about 19 timed feeders running between the company deer lease I manage and my own property. The last couple of years I've been having issues where you think you have a feeder working properly, replace battery, check to see if solar panel is working, etc and a month later the battery is low and the feeder not working.
This past month I've been pulling all the batteries, charging them and testing them and disposing of all the bad ones.
For some reason I tested some of the timers. I hooked a volt meter to the wires that go to the motor and there is voltage going out when the timer is not on. The 6 volt timers have up to around 4-1/2 volts going out and the 12 volt timers have some pushing almost 7 volts across them. This is mainly on the cheap timers. The Timer didn't have any voltage going out when not running as did some of the other "better" timers I have.
I've hunted for over 30 years so have accumulated all brands of timers over the years.
The biggest ones with issues is the Academy game winner, Wild view and Remington timers.
I'm not very electrical so I don't know the draw in milliamps these are letting thru. It looks to be minor but can anyone elaborate on this? Is this causing my problem. Has anyone else started to see this?
I know the long term answer is to get away from cheap timers and I've been slowly doing this. I thought these cheaper timers wouldn't last as long but never thought they would give me these other issues and possibly wear out the batteries faster.
I have about 19 timed feeders running between the company deer lease I manage and my own property. The last couple of years I've been having issues where you think you have a feeder working properly, replace battery, check to see if solar panel is working, etc and a month later the battery is low and the feeder not working.
This past month I've been pulling all the batteries, charging them and testing them and disposing of all the bad ones.
For some reason I tested some of the timers. I hooked a volt meter to the wires that go to the motor and there is voltage going out when the timer is not on. The 6 volt timers have up to around 4-1/2 volts going out and the 12 volt timers have some pushing almost 7 volts across them. This is mainly on the cheap timers. The Timer didn't have any voltage going out when not running as did some of the other "better" timers I have.
I've hunted for over 30 years so have accumulated all brands of timers over the years.
The biggest ones with issues is the Academy game winner, Wild view and Remington timers.
I'm not very electrical so I don't know the draw in milliamps these are letting thru. It looks to be minor but can anyone elaborate on this? Is this causing my problem. Has anyone else started to see this?
I know the long term answer is to get away from cheap timers and I've been slowly doing this. I thought these cheaper timers wouldn't last as long but never thought they would give me these other issues and possibly wear out the batteries faster.
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