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ianboag

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#173580 28-May-2015 10:56
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To drive a relay from the Pi, one needs to cobble up a fairly simple circuit where the 3.3V GPIO pin turns on a transistor that drives the relay. This is such a common requirement that I figured someone somewhere must sell a PCB for it. Or even a relay with the transistor driver on the same board?

In my case I only want to run a little reed relay to manage a contact closure .... but I still need to do the transistor thing. I have made one already on some generic Vero but like the idea of a "proper" PCB.  I need some more and don't feel any urge to acquire PCB layout/manufacturing skills.

Any ideas?

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  #1313361 28-May-2015 11:35
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Just connect the GPIOs directly to one of these;

http://www.hobbyist.co.nz/?q=4-channel-relay-module

They have the necessary transistors and isolation/buffer circuitry to protect the GPIO pins. 

I am using one of these boards with a RPi to control my irrigation solenoids. Been up and running for a couple of years with zero issues.



richms
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  #1313376 28-May-2015 11:48
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I have seen a relay hat for the pi around somewhere before, so it already exists.




Richard rich.ms

  #1313380 28-May-2015 11:52
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I actually have a PiFace sitting around somewhere I could be talked into flicking on, if you are interested. It has two on-board relays and screw terminals for the other GPIO pins. Quite a handy board for dev/testing/prototyping. PM me if you are keen.




k14

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  #1313391 28-May-2015 12:00
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SumnerBoy: Just connect the GPIOs directly to one of these;

http://www.hobbyist.co.nz/?q=4-channel-relay-module

They have the necessary transistors and isolation/buffer circuitry to protect the GPIO pins. 

I am using one of these boards with a RPi to control my irrigation solenoids. Been up and running for a couple of years with zero issues.

How do you set the schedule for turning them on/off? I was thinking of doing this for my home irrigation too, the hunter controller I have at the moment is pretty restrictive as to the schedule you can program into it.

  #1313395 28-May-2015 12:04
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I wrote a little Python script which runs on the RPi (found here: https://github.com/sumnerboy12/mqtt-gpio-monitor) and then *speak* to it using MQTT publishes from my openHAB home automation system.

Once you have the RPi setup with mqtt-gpio-monitor it is pretty easy to get openHAB sending commands - and then you have full control. I would be happy to share my openHAB irrigation config if you are interested - it has some rules to scale back irrigation based on the current and historical (last 1-2 days) temp, humidity and rainfall.


richms
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  #1313435 28-May-2015 12:54
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I was looking into doing all that for irrigation, but in the end just bought this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IrrigationCaddy-S1-Refurbished-/231312073736?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35db462408

Only got one valve on it at the moment, they can do a AU plug PSU and its ready to go. Not sure what you could do to enable/disable it etc but till I zone my drippers I need to run them all regardless of weather since some are under cover and dont get rain on them.




Richard rich.ms

k14

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  #1313478 28-May-2015 13:50
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richms: I was looking into doing all that for irrigation, but in the end just bought this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/IrrigationCaddy-S1-Refurbished-/231312073736?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35db462408

Only got one valve on it at the moment, they can do a AU plug PSU and its ready to go. Not sure what you could do to enable/disable it etc but till I zone my drippers I need to run them all regardless of weather since some are under cover and dont get rain on them.

Wow that looks much easier. Will have to look into that. Now just got to work out how to get cat 5 to under my kitchen bench (where irrigation controller is).

 
 
 

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).
richms
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  #1313492 28-May-2015 14:02
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They have a wifi model, or just add a wifi bridge to that one.




Richard rich.ms

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