Help with GPIO

[Cousteau666]

My reef pie is being a real pain, as it wont illuminate my led circuit from any of the pins I have configured. My circuit works when I hook straight to 3.3 or 5v but with nothing else. It is illuminating the LED on the relay board but will not engage the relay.

Can anyone advise on what I may be or may NOT be doing to cause this?

 

[Cousteau666]

My reef pie is being a real pain, as it wont illuminate my led circuit from any of the pins I have configured. My circuit works when I hook straight to 3.3 or 5v but with nothing else. It is illuminating the LED on the relay board but will not engage the relay.

Can anyone advise on what I may be or may NOT be doing to cause this?

Bump

 

[slythy]

Can you show me a drawing of your setup? I dont have a reefpi but do a lot of arduino projects. A diagram is going to be the best way to get help.

 

[Cousteau666]

Can you show me a drawing of your setup? I dont have a reefpi but do a lot of arduino projects. A diagram is going to be the best way to get help.

Hey, thanks for taking a moment to respond! I shall send a pic and a sketch of what I have tried. One min...

 

[robinm]

It probably doesn't deliver enough power to engage the relay, you could stick a transistor in the circuit so the pi switches the transistor which then engages the relay

 

[slythy]

It probably doesn't deliver enough power to engage the relay, you could stick a transistor in the circuit so the pi switches the transistor which then engages the relay

Im betting its one of those prebuilt modules with opto isolators. But of its not… then thats probably it

 

[Cousteau666]

Im betting its one of those prebuilt modules with opto isolators. But of its not… then thats probably it

Thank for takin the time to respond. I wish I replied sooner, but I had to go vacuum my grandparents drip pan on their HVAC as soon as I saw this message. Sucker was like 140F up there, liked to kill me.

Anyway.

This is legit the circuit I'm running. Suuuuper simple, yet I have failed in operating it successfully. The resistor I'm running is not the one in the picture, but is a 470 ohm resistor. Is this at all helpful in troubleshooting my problem?

 

[Cousteau666]

It probably doesn't deliver enough power to engage the relay, you could stick a transistor in the circuit so the pi switches the transistor which then engages the relay

Highly possible as on the 3.3v circuit the LED is woefully dim, it is barely even illuminated. When I try running the LED circuit on the GPIO pins it will not illuminate at all. I also can not detect voltage across the supposed 'on' pins.

I was not expecting to need one as all the instructions I have read did not recommend additional power requirements to engage the relay. Would you mind making a recommendation on which size transistor? I'm happy to provide more info if you find yourself interested in helping further.

 

[Cousteau666]

Im betting its one of those prebuilt modules with opto isolators. But of its not… then thats probably it

It probably doesn't deliver enough power to engage the relay, you could stick a transistor in the circuit so the pi switches the transistor which then engages the relay

Also here are the pics of the relay -> pi set up as I have it configured. Anything immediately jump out as clearly wrong?

Also the brightness of the LED's increased when I switched from the 3.3v to 5v pin.

 

[robinm]

At the moment you aren't supplying power to the relays. You can either put a jumper between VCC and JD-VCC which will use power from the VCC connection on the 10 way connector provided that your power supply can deliver at least 700 mA or use a separate power supply connected to the GND and JD-VCC pins. Be aware that these relays are active low i.e. the relay engages when the GPIO pin is low.

 

[Cousteau666]

At the moment you aren't supplying power to the relays. You can either put a jumper between VCC and JD-VCC which will use power from the VCC connection on the 10 way connector provided that your power supply can deliver at least 700 mA or use a separate power supply connected to the GND and JD-VCC pins. Be aware that these relays are active low i.e. the relay engages when the GPIO pin is low.

Ah man, thank you for the response! I will fiddle with it when I get home this evening and see if I can get it to work.

 

[robinm]

No worries, let us know how you get on

 

[Cousteau666]

Not only did it need power, but my the designations I assigned to the pins were woefully incorrect. Got the whole thing working now

 

[Cousteau666]

No worries, let us know how you get on

Is there a clever way to give power to the JDVCC. I sacrificed a usb cable and spliced into some jumpers, but it looks sketch. I'm searching adafruit for something better, but if you are aware of anything, I'm open to suggestions!

 

[slythy]

Is there a clever way to give power to the JDVCC. I sacrificed a usb cable and spliced into some jumpers, but it looks sketch. I'm searching adafruit for something better, but if you are aware of anything, I'm open to suggestions!

Is there 120v inside the relays? I assume there is based on all the switching. You could pull the 120 off of the in side on the relays and then use a 120-5v ac/dc converter.

You can use one like
Cheapy converter

 

[Cousteau666]

Is there 120v inside the relays? I assume there is based on all the switching. You could pull the 120 off of the in side on the relays and then use a 120-5v ac/dc converter.

You can use one like
Cheapy converter

YEAH! thats exactly what I need!! Man, THANK YOU!!!