Ok so what I did was play around with the value the arduino is reading from the pot by multiplying it by a number: delay((sensorValue)*25); that gives me a delay of 25 seconds when the pot is turned all the way up. I then put in 35 to get 35 seconds and its been on for 3 minutes and counting now. This isnt how you scale it so there must be something between 25 and 35 thats throwing its count off.