74HC595 and Relay board question

should be plug and play, I have one of these boards already and it is easy to integrate to

the only thing you may have to do is invert your signal depending on weather your outputting a 0 for LED ON or a 1.

you are still driving LEDs, the only difference is these ones are part of an optical isolator and a logical 1 should turn on the LED/Relay.

that should be the only change

regards

Peter

The relays are active HIGH

so it should be simple to just connect to COM and NO on the relays and signal to signal.

I was planning to power the relay board from the same 5V source I am going to use for the arduino and not through the arduino.

The Power Supply gives me a 2A 5V standby rail without switching on the main supply, that should be more than sufficient to run the Arduino, the 595 and the relay board and not have to strain the regulator of the Arduino.

Well, it will be this summer before I get everything together so we will see then.

And I think I also like the idea of using the load side of the relay for the signal LEDs either that or put in dual 595s and sync them and have one for the relays and one for the signal LEDs.

I haven't decided yet.

But thank you for confirmation on my concerns about the relay board being plug and play. makes life much easier.

I got confused because I see some people putting transistors and other things between their arduino and relays and it just seemed redundant and unnecessary

I think those are using relays that have a 12V trigger signal.

I dunno

in the case of seeing people putting in transistors, this is because they do not have it built into the relay board

in your case all this is included making it an easy job to interface.

Are you currently turning on the LEDs with a common ground and pushing 5V into them via a resistor or are they connected with a common 5V and you pulling the other side to 0v

if the first then you may need an inverter after the chip, if the latter then it may not be an issue as you will need to power them the way it initializes anyway.

put another way, are you clearing the output of the 595 to zero or one ?

in the case of seeing people putting in transistors, this is because they do not have it built into the relay board

in your case all this is included making it an easy job to interface.

Are you currently turning on the LEDs with a common ground and pushing 5V into them via a resistor or are they connected with a common 5V and you pulling the other side to 0v

if the first then you may need an inverter after the chip, if the latter then it may not be an issue as you will need to power them the way it initializes anyway.

put another way, are you clearing the output of the 595 to zero or one ?

The LEDs are connected via a resistor from each pin of the 595 then to a common ground

Well, ok, I have the resistor between the LED and ground, but same idea.

they come either all or some portion of them come on when I connect power to the arduino (currently the whole thing is being powered from the arduino power)

then after a brief time (less than 1 second) they all turn off as the sketch tells them they should be LOW

I know there is some function of pins 10 and 13 on the 595 I don't understand, might this help?

currently I am only using the data, latch and clock connections on the 595

The LEDs are connected via a resistor from each pin of the 595 then to a common ground

Well, ok, I have the resistor between the LED and ground, but same idea.

they come either all or some portion of them come on when I connect power to the arduino (currently the whole thing is being powered from the arduino power)

then after a brief time (less than 1 second) they all turn off as the sketch tells them they should be LOW

I know there is some function of pins 10 and 13 on the 595 I don't understand, might this help?

currently I am only using the data, latch and clock connections on the 595