Meadow Musings

It's December, and you know what that means?  'Tis the season to get LED light strings and great timer-plugs.   I love timer-plugs, and this time of year there are tons available -- ones that you can program, ones with "I swear I'm not out of town, so don't break in and steal stuff" randomizing schemes, ones that turn on automatically at dusk, and more.

However, there was one kind of timer switch that I couldn't find at all -- the kind where you say to it, "turn on now, then turn off in an hour."   I've been wanting this kind of timer for a while, mostly for the rechargable things in my life, like cordless drills and other batteries.  It's also great for things like iPods and cell phones -- unless the battery is totally dead, an hour or so of charging each day is more than enough to keep them full.

I couldn't find the kind of timer I wanted, so I decided to make one myself. 

Materials and Tools: 

• One power strip (or extension cord if you only want one timed outlet)
• One surface-mount plug box
• Two clamp connectors (sized to match your box)
• One timer switch (meant to be wired directly into your house, to control things like bathroom fans)
• Two of those plastic twisty wire connectors

You can get all this at Ye Olde Home Depot (though if, like us, you've been dabbling in electrical work, you probably have a bunch of it hanging around).  You'll also need a wire cutter/stripper and a screwdriver. 

How To:

1. Cut the cord on the power strip, then separate out the three wires on each side and strip the last inch or so.  Then remember that the timer switch actually has a strip gauge on it, and cut those little copper ends to match the gauge.  Look, that little pile of copper bits looks just like Christmas!  Try not to embed too many little copper guys in your thumb, because that smarts. 

    

2. Screw the clamp connectors into either end of your box, then insert the cord.  Use those little twisty things (do they have names?  Oh well.)  to connect the green wires to each other, and the black wires to each other.  Look, you're going to maintain the grounding wire connection*!  How safety-minded of us!

   

   *Truth be told, as far as we can tell, the grounding in our house plugs doesn't actually ever connect to, you know, the ground.  I think our house was built by monkeys. Drunk monkeys.
   
   
3. The white wires attach to the top-and-bottom of the timer switch.  For our switch, we inserted them into little side holes and then screwed in the connection screws on top of them.  Then stuff all of that stuff into the box and screw the timer into the box itself. 

   

4. Put the timer cover on (ours screwed on with a little tiny nut, then the dial itself slides onto the post), tighten all the screws on the clamp connectors, and voila!  A timed power strip!  We tested ours with LED lights, because I love those little guys.  (Who knows why you would ever want to put LED lights on a timer.  They only use 1 watt!  Leave them up (and on) all year! Bother the neighbors!)

   

This is one of the easiest wiring projects we've ever done (even though one of us* ended up needing a band-aid), thanks to the generous box size (easy to stuff wires into) and the nice flexible wires (easy to stuff).   It was fast and easy, and I'm looking forward to it helping us save power from now on!

* Not me.