The ultimate relay card: Finished board and test program.

[oldmcgroin]

awesome work

[linuxgeek81]

@oldmcgroin Flattery is the religion of... poor Michaels I guess ;) Thanks.

[myozone]

say, relay 1 on 30 minutes before sunset then off at sunrise on Dec 1st 2012 would also be good

[linuxgeek81]

@myozone That would require me to keep track of the sun cycle which depends on the time zone and also the time of the year. I will not do that, however if you know when the sun rises (which you can easily look up) it's possible. I also think about implementing multiple timers per relay. Although the effort must be limited for me to get it done.

[lartti83]

I have a question, Since youre powering the card from external power supply, do you leave the USB power lines unconnected to the rest of the card?

[linuxgeek81]

@lartti83 No, I use it to force the FT232 into reset. First time I do that. However I don't draw power from it. 500mA is not nearly enough for an application like that unfortunately. At least not if you want to expand it and even if not it's more than tight. The next USB standard promises more but it will be a long time before we can think about it. I could of course draw 800mA out of USB instead of 500mA but I want to build standard conform devices.

[lartti83]

@linuxgeek81 thanks for the answer!

[orbiter8]

What is the card actually designed for Mike?

[Flankymanga]

@orbiter8 from what i understand it should turn on or off some of the relay outputs based on the preset time. I haven't read the web page about the project i just check the videos. Correct me if im wrong :)

[linuxgeek81]

@Flankymanga There is no "web page" yet. Also it is not done yet, I'm in the process of implementing all of this. But the general scope should be clear.

[linuxgeek81]

@orbiter8 If you have to ask about that I guess it'll be of no use for you ;)