Relays!! How to use them

I had a thought about the use of relays and decided to make a video. I hope this helps somebody out with a project. You have to be careful with relays, since you are essentially creating a current source. Just like you would never short a voltage source, you would never want to "open" a current source. Thanks for watching, and please comment if this video wasted your time, I will redo it!!
http://www.kevindarrah.com/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• relay
• microcontroller
• arduino
• pic
• avr
• picaxe
• how
• to
• circuit
• free
• wheeling
• diode
• flyback

[1giggdy1]

it gos - to + not + to - btw

[kdarrah1234]

@1giggdy1 not in my world! haha

[TheColdrevenge]

can you make a tutorial for capacitors?

[kdarrah1234]

@TheColdrevenge yea, I want to make a lot of new videos, but I've been really busy

[SoundsFantastic]

Here is the datasheet for that relay.. omron(dot)com/ecb/products/pdf­/en-g5sb(dot)pdf

Could you answer one question I have, what is the current need on the coil to make the relay work? From I can see It says 80mA with a Power Consumption of 400mA. Isnt that alot more than what most Microcontrolers can handle? The Arduino has an output of 20-40mA. So the 5V from the trasistor to the relay would need to come from a higher power source other than from the board right?

[kdarrah1234]

@SoundsFantastic yep thats right, I'm not sure if I ta;l about that in the video, but you should always use a transistor to drive the relay. thanks

[Nathanxiangdarby]

Good vid...thanks

[hpjunky70]

I am runnin a ton of extra shit in my truck and it's killin my alltinator. I have a whole nother fuse box to run all of my stuff and the fans are drawin a shit load of power. Instead of runnin a bunch of relay's could i put one on the main hot wire from the battery to soak up that draw? Other wise i'm installing 10 relays.

[1point61803]

2 questions: Why don't relays come preassembled with a diode/transistor and what was the transistor for?

[itspennysboat]

whats the minimum voltage to drive a relay????

[CumQuaT1337]

Wow, this was really informative! Thanks for uploading this! Hard to find tutorials that are in plain english!

[dewalt607]

@kdarrah1234, great video but when i tried it the second light wouldn't shut off it would only dim.?? help?