Author Topic: UPDATED: Help or comments on a DC only SSR  (Read 2400 times)

Offline D56VillageNut

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I don't know if there is enough interest to justify this but here it goes.

I have a miniature Christmas Village display that has a number of lighted accessories that run on either 3v DC or 4.5v DC.  I generally power them with "wall wart" adapters to eliminate the batteries.  I also have a few items that are powered by 12v wall warts these generally have motors or components that require 12v.

Wirekat has challenged me to "liven it up" a bit as it were and bring some DIY Lighting Animation into the picture.  I am not an electronics engineer so designing circuits and doing PCB layouts  is beyond my skill level at this point.  At the very least I'm interested in some help with a circuit design and perhaps some component selection guidance for a variation of an SSR.

I would like to "create" a small device that would be essentially a DC SSR to be controlled from a Freestyle.  What I would like is to be able to plug the wall wart's DC output (3, 4.5 or 12v as needed) and the chosen accessory into the "device" so that the accessory could be controlled or switched by the output side of the SSR.  Dimming would be nice if possible but right now I'm willing to just have the items turn on and off.  I would be interested in testing some of the mini led light strings I have to see if they would dim.

A 4 channel device like the current AC SSR would be OK but I would also be interested in a single or double channel version so that I could have one that is fairly compact for certain applications.  In my display I have lots of 110v outlets spaced to accomodate the various buidlings so this would let me locate my accessories, their wall warts, and the DC SSR and just run a Cat5 cable to it from the Freestyle.

I will try to attach a simple diagram of what my idea is to maybe make it a little clearer.   If anyone is able to help or provide input I would appreciate it greatly. 

Alan Thompson

UPDATE:  I want to say "Thanks" to everyone that has given me input on this project.  To add some clarification I am adding some pictures of some of the items I have that run on either 3v or 4.5v.  In the earlier post I mentioned testing my mini-led lights to see if they dim.  The mini-led lights I have are strings of 25 LEDS powered by 2 - C-cell (1.5v) batteries not the mini-leds that plug into AC.  I hope this didn't confuse anyone.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2009, by D56VillageNut »

Offline Aussiephil

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Re: Help or comments on a DC only SSR
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2009, »
Alan,

There is a DC SSR over at DIYC that may do what you want, i personally haven't built or used one.

I have a DMX DC Controller designed and breadboarded that would also seem to fit your requirements though the first design will be 48 channels.

I did layout a 16ch variant last night as I also would like this.

I looked at the ability to use with supplies as low as 4v for the LED's last night and i'm confident it will work, still need to provide 5v to the controller though. I need to test.

One thing a am doing for all my LED strings is to use active 20mA constant current driver in series with the LED's before they get connect to any ssr/controller.
This allows a level of flexibility in LED supply voltage.
As an example the LED's in the breadboard at the moment are wired like
+20v -> Single LED -> CL2N3 -> Controller/SSR -> Gnd

The CL2N3 is the constant Current device.  Your could do the same sort of thing to eanble you to use 12v supply for all the lights if desired.

cheers
Phil
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Dont Forget - "Play Nicely"

Offline dmaccole

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Re: Help or comments on a DC only SSR
« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2009, »
Alan:

Have you looked at the Lynx MR16 controller (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

\dmc

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Offline dmaccole

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Re: Help or comments on a DC only SSR
« Reply #3 on: June 12, 2009, »
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... and I've received advice on using the MR16 to run LEDs at 5v.

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Do tell?

\dmc
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