I am wondering if this Arduino Relay Shield design would be good enough to handle 120v 1amp The transistor is a 2n4401. Also The Two capacitors on the other 3 circuits would be going to ground opps its to late for this
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migrated from electronics.stackexchange.com Aug 2 at 6:24This question came from our site for electronics and electrical engineering professionals, students, and enthusiasts. |
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As already mentioned, everything to the left of the relays is completely irrelevant when it comes to what the system can cope with. It's purely down to the relays what voltage and current they can deal with. As far as the circuit goes there's nothing wrong with it that I can see at first glance. So to go from there to an actual physical shield there are a number of things you do need to consider:
Remember: Mains voltages are dangerous, caution and safety should be your first concern over everything else! One more tip: Do all your mains experimentation as safe as possible. Either ensure that you have an ELCB and an RCD on your ring main / power outlet (with the former you must ensure that you have your earth wires connected properly), or even better (and what I would certainly recommend above all else), use an Isolation Transformer to separate you from the mains circuit entirely. With an Isolation Transformer electrocution is only possible if you contact both terminals at once as opposed to just one terminal of the normal mains supply. Edit: One thing that does puzzle me with your circuit is how you have wired up the common pin of the relays. That part of the circuit makes no sense to me at all. You should have 2 connections to each relay - in and out where in connects to the NO and out connects to the common pin¹. The only way your arrangement could work would be to designate one relay as a master power control and that one has the main power coming in which then feeds through to the common rail to supply the other three relays. If this is what you want, then you will have to ensure that the relay designated as master (and its connector) has at least three times the capacity of the other three relays and connectors (or all four relays have at least three times the capacity you would otherwise need). ¹ Note: doing it this way around ensures that when the relay is in the off position the NC pin isn't live. The only pin that would ever be live is the common pin. Safety first...! |
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The critical part is the relay. I'd want relays with rated to switch the load and and handle the cold current that the lamp wants. I also want to see a good creepage clearance distance between digital side and the relay outputs. Relays which put the common contact between the coil terminals are probably a bad choice here, relays that instead have the contact terminals at one end and the coil terminals at the other make the PCB layout easier. |
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