Alternatives to Jumpers?

Question

I have a need to be able to connect a lead on a circuit to 1 of 5 different other leads. I think it’s obvious how I can accomplish this with jumpers or DIP switches or encoders.

The wrinkle here is that the voltage is somewhat high ~ 30V.

My question is: is there a electrically controlled way to accomplish this? I’ve looked at multiplexers and some other options but once you get into the 30V range these components seem to get too expensive to justify the cost.

What options are available in this situation?

To summarize, a good solution would:

1. Allow electronic control
2. Handle ~ 30V @ .5A
3. Be low cost — If one component handles mapping 1 to 5 lines, I’d need 5 of them on the board; each of 5 lines gets mapped to one of 5 lines.

Answer 1

There are devices called (UK) uniselector, better known in the (US) as a stepping relay. A few of these should do what you want. They use to use a variation of these in the old phone COs (Central Office). Basically they behave as a selector switch but power driven with a stepping coil. You need to pulse it for each position you want to move it. The ones I am familiar with are break before make on the contacts. They were available at one time as a combination, where it would step up to one of 10 rows then step over from 1 to ten locations. Here is a good article by Automatic Electric called "How to use Roptary Stepping Switches. https://www.telephonecollectors.info/index.php/browse/bc-switching-library/automatic-electric/ae-switching-docs/10539-how-to-use-rotary-stepping-switches-automatic-electric-1964-ocr-r/file Rotary switches are still available from several sources.

Answer 2

I recommend relays. Each one normally does 2 outputs, so you'll need to chain them.

(source: http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/375472H-01/TOC1.htm)

Answer 3

It depends on which way the current needs to go, if the is going from a load to multiple sources and only goes in one direction from a higher to a lower voltage then using FETs would work.

Otherwise some other options are solid state relays which can sometimes be found in the below dollar range for the current and voltage the design needs. Make sure the SSRS have FETs and not triacs