My journey to controlling 120v brought me to sparkfun.com I purchased several Relay Control PCB’s. They offer a convenient parts list to help you find all the right bits and pieces to fill out the PCB.
Relay PCB from Sparkfun
Obviously I couldn’t wait to take pictures when putting together the PCB’s, but it was pretty easy overall. And if your not up to the task of putting these together I’m not sure that you should be trying to put together the beast in the following posts.
Overall putting together the pieces was pretty easy. If you’ve ever soldered a freeduino or any kind of basic PCB you’ll be fine. If you’re not sure I would highly recommend checking out a local Hack (insert locale here) event. Locally I visit Hack Pittsburgh. They helped me build the freeduino I use later on in this post to control the relays. Basically this PCB helps us use the 5v power we can get from PIN HIGH on the arduino to control 120v of power like a regular outlet. This appilcation has it’s limitations, so be warned this is only for testing purposes. Not for full scale operation. And certainly do not leave this type of device plugged in without monitoring.
Relay PCB from Sparkfun.com
Come back soon to see the next step.
Captcha on mobile is a little tricky
What is your goal in twiddling 120VAC?
Wow! Gravatars are still around! I put that goban icon someplace 6 years ago. I had forgotten all about it.
Just a starting point for electronics control. Seemed like a good place to start.
I want to use the Arduino to control 12 120v red light bulbs. How do I interface the Arduino to the 12 bulbs?
Be patient future posts will show you the way