Raspberry pi and creating some electronics

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reven

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#165765 20-Feb-2015 07:46

Hi Guys,

I'm a complete n00b at electronics (only did some in high school 17 years ago). I have a raspberrypi coming (will likely switch to Arduinos later) and wanting to make a few things

1. I want to control my garage door opener with a pi, I have a z-wave device for this, but its a POS and unreliable. I found this youtube video

which looks simple enough, now just have to get the parts and hook them up correctly. My garage door takes two wires into it (how I expect most do), red/black. I'm assuming the red is NC and black is (COM?)

I found this relay from nicegear which I think will work. Just need to figure out how to connect it up.

From this GPIO layout for the pi. Would I connect
pi 6 to GND on relay
pi 2 to VDD on relay (think VDD means it needs the 5v input)
pi 3 to EN on relay (any GPIO on the pi to EN I assume)

I'm not sure if VDD and EN are correctly (no idea what EN stands for).

like I said, complete n00b :)

SumnerBoy

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#1242776 20-Feb-2015 08:19

Yep - so those relays are pretty standard, and nice and easy to use. As you mentioned you just need to connect 5V and GND from the Pi to VDD and GND on the relay. This 'powers' the relay. Then when you apply a digital HIGH (from one of your GPIO pins on the Pi) to EN, it signals a transistor on the board which completes the relay coil circuit, causing it to charge and engage the electromagnet, which closes the mechanical relay contacts.

reven

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#1242778 20-Feb-2015 08:23

sweet, thanks for that.

Looks like I should be able to control my heat pump vent thing I told you about before using something similar (thats a two state switch).

back to nicegear to order some more stuff :)

KennyM

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#1244021 22-Feb-2015 10:22

I've used those relays with my pi, as above said, they work great.

What software / app were you going to use to trigger it?
Will there be a delay in being able to open it when arriving home and waiting for the wifi to reconnect?

I think the guy in the video labeled his doors backwards, left should be left looking from outside as you drive up to the door.