Anyone familiar with relays mechanical or otherwise? I would like to be able to switch on/off up to 250W (120V) load using a microcontroller.
Will be used to control lighting to an aquarium.
Tell me more
×
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for
electronics and electrical engineering professionals, students, and enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
|
Solid-state relays are easier to use than electro-mechanical ones. They can be controlled directly by MCU outputs and you don't have to worry about things like putting diodes across coils. I've used lots of them with an ARM to control motors and valves in a complex piece of medical equipment. |
||||
|
|
Mechanical relays require gobs of current to keep the coil energized, much more than you can directly get from a microcontroller, and when you want to switch them off, you have to contend with all the flyback energy too (i.e., the diode thing). Solid state is the way to go. |
|||
|
|
|
You can see a list of advantages and disadvantages here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_state_relay#Advantages_over_mechanical_relays In your case, whatever. Both solutions work. It will depend on the variable that you take into account, such as price, life cycle, etc. |
|||
|
|
