Need to build a repeat timer

I am not new to electronics but would definitely not be a profesional so I need some help. I need to switch a relay on for about 30 seconds every 1-2 hours. I have been reading about the possible ways of doing this and am wonder if anyone has some idea on an easy way of doing it. Could I do this with a 555 and a 4060b or would there be a better way of doing it? The times do not need to be precise. Thanks

Would a commercial solution make more sense for you? What power source is available?

A commercial source would be fine, but I have been having trouble finding it in 12v. If anyone knows of anything that would work great also.

If you go commercial there are units like this. They come in 12 volt powered versions and you are looking for a repeat cycle version with programmable ON / OFF times. The link is to Macromatic but Omron and others make them also.

Ron

I would simply use a 08m Picaxe chip with a transistor connected to output 2 driving the relay, and a simple little program like this below, to control everything.

You would need to change the "pause 1000" to a slightly lower figure to get near accurate time periods to allow for program instruction times but it will be close to correct as it is.

Pete.

Nice posting