No pictures, but I added a modification to the feeding timer. I have found that for things like water changes and sump maintenence, the
feeding timer is great. Just hit the buton and my pump turns off. However, the 30 minutes I have it set for is not always needed. It is nice to know the pump will turn back
on by itself if I forget, but when I am standing there and have finished a water change, I found myself unplugging and replugging in the timer to
reset it....well now...that defeats the whole purpose of not having to plug and unplug things right?
Sooooo.....I went over the schematics to find an easy place to add a reset switch. Pin 4 of the 555 acts as a reset, but has some pretty specific voltage requirements that
would have needed adding a resistor in series with a switch from +5v. More examination revealed a pretty easy way to make the timer think the elapsed time was up and
reset itself. The basics of the circuit depend on the values of R1 and C1 for timing...and R1 controls how fast C1 recharges. In the current design R1 ia a
hefty 10Mohm resistor on my unit. A simple momentary switch across this resistor recharges the capacitor in milliseconds. I then drilled a hole in the cover, mounted another
momentary SPST switch and soldered 2 wires from the leads of R1 to the switch...Presto...a reset switch.
Now when I want to restart the return pump, I can just hit this switch and the 555 thinks it's time has expired and resets the relay. It is nice to know that if I forget the pump will
automatically turn back on in 30 minutes, but no more unplugging the timer to reset it.
I hope this helps someone, and let me know if there are any questions.