Raphael Assenat has designed a circuit that allows a computer parallel port to control 110VAC lighting. It is optically isolated allowing the computer to remain safe as it switches the high voltage.
“I had been thinking of controlling my room lighting using my computer. I bought some triacs and opto couplers to do this. I drew the schematic and built a prototype. Everything worked well. When I was wondering in which case to use, one of my friends suggested that I could use my computer switch box.”
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Meh i i have triacs at home but i always froget to buy some optotiracs to control them.I think one use i planed ofr them was a controled capacitator chanrger for my coilgun but never got trough making it.
This is a simple but useful project trough controling vasirus stuff over the LPT
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come on, this is sooo old!
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A very nice idea. The author has taken good precautions on soldering the AC connections. You want a connection that can soak up enough heat so that the fuse/circuit breaker will blow before the solder melts.
Many companies use lugs that are crimped into and soldered to the board and the stripped AC wire is wrapped around these and soldered. They do this to have a couple of redundant safe guards against a wire coming lose with use and specifically abuse.
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I made one myself with relais and a old macintosh, but this is 10 times smaller then what I have. And it looks a lot better….
See link: http://img134.imageshack.us/my.php?image=p1010823hv9.jpg
Thank god, iam going to rip it off the wall very soon…
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Hi Ewout,
Nice work,it looks very well done! What is the heatsink on the front for?
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Its covering a big hole where used to be a big fuse.
Actually this is power supply 2,0 the first version
had a fuse but there was no room in the second version
so I coverd it with the heatsink. (looks cool)
There for I find the power supply from Alan much better.
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Its crazy, my church had a crazy awesome electronics guy and he actualy had the lighting system set up to be usable via a com port on his ancient laptop.