DIY Arduino Controllable Power Strip

[estutesman]

Thanks for the reply. I'm brand new at DIY on this level. I'll definately bookmark the site you gave me and check back often.

so it would essentially work like the...how do I say...powerstrips that come with retail controllers...cool

I was thinking about trying this with a solid state relay board. other than costs, do you see any drawbacks?

Any particular reason for 7 outlets instead of 8? 16?

I'm currently running two systems, and I was depending on the capabilities of the Apex or Reefkeeper to control both due to cost. With my discovery of the Arduino, I'm thinking that I can easily put one on each system.

 

[tastydog]

Thanks for the reply. I'm brand new at DIY on this level. I'll definately bookmark the site you gave me and check back often.

so it would essentially work like the...how do I say...powerstrips that come with retail controllers...cool

I was thinking about trying this with a solid state relay board. other than costs, do you see any drawbacks?

Any particular reason for 7 outlets instead of 8? 16?

I'm currently running two systems, and I was depending on the capabilities of the Apex or Reefkeeper to control both due to cost. With my discovery of the Arduino, I'm thinking that I can easily put one on each system.

Yes, it would work just like the powerstrips that come with retail controllers.

I do not see any drawbacks to solid state relays, for all practical purposes. There are some considerations but if you use overrated high quality SSR's you will be fine. Do make sure they are overrated though, meaning if you want 1amp per line, make sure the relay is rated for 5amps. Also, keep in mind that the relays need to be switchable at 5v and have very low current draw. Outside of that scope, you will want to use a transformer to power them.

The reason for 7 is because that was the relay driver I had handy and it only had 7 lines. You could scale this easily to 16 with this particular I2C breakout board you just need to find an 8 channel relay driver with the right stats and get two of them... or find a 16 channel relay driver. Just keep in mind what I said earlier about overall current draw to operate the relays.

 

[hydrozoa]

This tutorial is excellent! Thank you so much.

 

[spacey123]

Great tutorial. I was about to design/build this very device. My objective is to use this in my home theatre rack, which is located remotely from the viewing locations. Occasionally my AppleTV or Bell ExpressVu receiver will freeze, and I want to cycle the power. In some cases, that is 2 floors down from the viewing location. As such, to minimize current flow/power consumption, I would like normally closed contacts, and only cycle them open on the odd occasion (e.g. once per week, cycle each one, at most). Do you see any problems with this NC contact approach? Thank you!

 

[dmasterx1x]

Hi Brandon
This is an awesome project here. I appreciate the detailed guide you have here, as i'm sort of a novice with electronics and completely illiterate in arduino. I wanted to ask you one thing though, before i start ordering parts.. Would it be hard to add a real time module with a battery backup to the arduino part of this? My house tends to get blackouts in the summer, and i'm not always around to reset the various device timers i have, so i'd like something that could keep track of the current time for a few hours if possible. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

Dave

 

[kk818]

There are something you want to do DIY... those circuits are not one of them. Trust me. I have done quite a bit of research on these. Of course it is possible to create them yourself... however, the time and energy it would take is immense if you want to have verifiable precision results. These circuits are tricky and careful care needs to be taken in every step of the design. Also, the code on the chips to make them work properly, the wiring, electrical interference noise... etc... all of those things have to be taken into account. Salinity is an especially difficult circuit to design properly. A man's gotta know his limitations. There are PLENTY of other fun things you could be doing with a controller and monitor design than working out the nitty gritty details of those circuits. I myself wasted quite a bit of time trying to make my own. I had some degree of success but didn't want to take the time and expense that would have been necessary to build them to an acceptable tolerance of error. I realize your enthusiasm and desire to build your own. I respect that, but do consider my advice... just buy them and move on to more interesting and overall useful parts of the design.


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i agree 1000000000% this is an interesting project but it is a waste of time if i were u id save urself the headache and just buy a Neptune systems Apex which has everything you need along with the option to infinitely expand the modules.