I decided to make something like the power switch tale with my relay and it worked fine at first then I plugged it into a surge protector and it killed the power to my hole house and tripped some fuses. Anyway, I don't know what when wrong the second time and I need to fix it before trying it again!
The only things that were different was the program, how the relay was wired to the Arduino, and that I plugged it into a surge protecter. As for the wiring I simply just used the sensor pin on the relay not the entire grove setup (5v, ground, pin 6, pin7) but I don't think that mattered. The program should not matter either because the relay can only be off or on. When I plugged it in the relay was set to be on however I don't think it ever switched on because the power for the Arduino got shut off with the rest of my house which happened instantaneously! Also, a device of lower wattage was plugged into my home-made power cord the second time
The only idea I could come up with was that one of the wires slipped inside my home made power plug and a live wire hit a neutral or ground. If it matters I'm using a three prong cord that is running off a regular USA outlet (125v).
Also, please don't say I should not be doing this because that is not a consideration!
Thanks!
Edit: I can't get the pictures to post. Any certain format?