help please

Andy,

When you say that you want to control a 230v relay, is that a relay with a 230v coil or one that switches 230v?

What current (amps) will it be switching?

How many relays do you want to control?

How far away (approx) from your controller is the furthest relay that you want to control?

All these need to be known before anyone can give you any ideas about construction.

Programming will also depend on many things you've not mentioned.

Henry

Hello Andrew,

Henry is right that we need more information before helping. However, at the risk of jumping to conclusions, you seem very inexperienced and about to attempt to control UK mains powered devices from an Arduino. UK mains is seriously hazardous (not the nanny state elf 'n safetey hazardous but the real kind that can actually kill people).

Please make sure that any device you build is thoroughly checked by someone willing and able to take responsibility for its safetey before you connect it to the mains.

Sorry to put a damper on you activities  - if you explain what you want to do in a bit more detail I'll be happy to advise (as best I can at long range.)

Michael Kellett

hi

to clear things up.

im an electrician with many years experiance, so i know what i want just dont have the programing skills to do it

i need a relay that will switch 230v ampage is not important as it will be switching a controll circuit. so there will be no real load

i want to use ethernet connection and work over a LAN.

im after a program i can load up, select the days of the week on a year planner, and set a time on and off for the selected days.

then store the info on the device and leave it running, e.g i do not want the pc plugged in all the time to keep it running.

it would need to be able to store a whole years worth of info.

so the operater would change setting once a year.

If anyone has the skills to write a program to do what im after id be happy to pay for there time

many thanks for your time

andy

Hello Andrew,

Sorry if I mis-assumed earlier.

Farnell have a load of solid state relays (about 2000 tyoes) and many would do - I've picked the cheapest I could find with screw terminals and that could be driven by Arduino type outputs:

7228995

(This one is about £17 - there are much cheaper ones if you don't mind soldering wires on.)

As far as the coding goes I can't take on writing the whole thing for you ( well I could but I would have to charge you money.)

You mentioned  being in a school - can you find anyone there who could program for you ?

If not then perhaps one of the Aruino experts here might be interested in helping but it will take a fair bit of work to do what you describe.

Michael Kellett

thank you for the reply

id be happy to pay for the programming, it would take me ages to get my head around it, and even then i expect it would not work properly

if anyone is interested in doing this for me then please get in touch.

thanks

Hi Andy,

The relay part is easy (oomlout has a great example) and inexpensive.

Turning it on based on a yearly schedule is relatively easy. I would guess storing day, hour, minute would be detail enough. Depending on how often you have an event, it may require more memory (ie, use the Arduino Mega instead of a nano or uno).

To get that list of events onto the Arduino, you would like to use a LAN connection... that should also be fine.

So what's left is some sort of PC based software that does all the scheduling, then creates a list, and allows it to be uploaded to the Arduino that controls the relay. This could be time consuming to build.

The Arduino controller side is multiplied many times to allow LAN connection to one of dozens of different Arduino controller boards across the school. So each controller needs a unique identifier of some sort.

I'd be interested on taking that on. Private message me if you'd like.

But like others mentioned, it would likely be much cheaper or free if you found a local college or university to take it on as a project for one of their classes.

Cheers,

-Nico