Author Topic: Controlling something other than lights.  (Read 3483 times)

Offline aERonAUtical96

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Controlling something other than lights.
« on: December 26, 2013, »
So Santa brought me one of those laser projector devices.  Question I have is can this or any other item, i.e. blowups, rotisserie motor, smoke machine, etc, be controlled by an SSR?  I thought I've read somewhere that it was not recommended or could not/should not be done.  If not, can you enlighten me as of why not?

I have some old mechanical relays that I know are more conducive to this, but I need to try to find an old plugin that I wrote to control them.  That was probably 3 computers ago and need to find the source code.

Offline tbone321

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2013, »
The problem is that just about every item you listed is or contains an inductive load and those don't like to be dimmed and can be damaged or destroyed by doing it.  And on top of that, some of these inductive devices can induce a kickback voltage that may damage the SSR. 

Since many of these devices have no reason to be dimmed anyway, you could always use those mechanical relays to supply power to them and let the SSR's control the relays.  I would put a small 120V bulb across the relay coil (C5 or C7) to prevent the coil in the relay from kicking back and this will allow the SSR to control these devices safely.  Just make sure no dimming is used on those channels.

As for the blowups, they have both a resistive and an inductive load.  With them, I separate the loads and put the bulbs on there own plug.  This way I power the blowers and any other motors all the time and connect only the bulbs to the dimmer (SSR) and have full dimming capability. 
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Offline jnealand

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2013, »
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I separate the loads and put the bulbs on there own plug.  This way I power the blowers and any other motors all the time and connect only the bulbs to the dimmer (SSR) and have full dimming capability. 

+1
Jim Nealand
Kennesaw, GA

Offline rm357

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2013, »
Lasers in a display always scare me a little.
If it runs unattended, some kid will want to see how it works and get shot in the eye...


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Robert
Warner Robins, Georgia, USA

Offline Gary

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2013, »
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Lasers in a display always scare me a little.
If it runs unattended, some kid will want to see how it works and get shot in the eye...

Pew! Pew! Pew!

(I realize that my comment isn't adding any useful information to this forum; I just wanted to say "Pew! Pew! Pew!".  ;D
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Offline drlucas

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2013, »
Lol. Where is my friend doctor evil when I want to say "laser".
-Ryan Lucas-
- Pickering, Ontario, Canada, Eh?! -

Offline aERonAUtical96

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2013, »
While I agree with you on the safety concerns, I'm thinking mounting this on backside of megatree 10' high and have it project onto the house.

Offline rm357

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2013, »
Just need to make sure that the beam hits the house at least 5 foot above the ground. By the time they are that tall, they should know better.

Also, with the laser scanning, it's not likely to do any real damage, but it will scare the fool out of you if the beam hits your eye... (I caught the direct reflection from a laser pointer once...)

Of course, the parents of "Johnny Angel that has never done anything wrong in his whole life" will still go ballistic and accuse you of "targeting their son from 3 blocks away, since he has never even been on your street before"... (Sarcasm intended).


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Robert
Warner Robins, Georgia, USA

Offline LtKadeo

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #8 on: December 30, 2013, »
Sounds like what you might want to do is look into some dmx controled relays - I have seen some info on this in the arduino projects and I have made a proto type control with both rgb and relay control can look up some of my old info if you need
Ted K

Offline jim saul

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #9 on: December 30, 2013, »
I use some 120v 20 amp optical relays that i picked up on eBay for a couple of buck to control things like inflatables and blow molds with CFLs in them.
My relays use a 12 v trigger so I have a small transformer plugged into one channel.
Down side is there is no dimming, upside is I've never seen someone "dim" an inflatables to 50% so it's only half inflated.  ;)

Offline tbone321

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Re: Controlling something other than lights.
« Reply #10 on: December 30, 2013, »
Tat's because it doesn't work that way, LOL.  Standard AC motors don't change speed to a standard dimmer and can actually burn out.  As said before, you can seperate the lights from the blower and other motors in the inflatable and still have the dimming effect with no fear of damage.
If at first you don't succeed,
your not cut out for sky diving