I'm sure you get this question 10 times a day. While working on my reef controller project I've decided that due to the cost of the unit I might as well expand it into controlling the whole system (Rather than just my LED fixture).
So what's the common thinking on this? Is someone making an arduino compatible power strip?
I'm looking for just on/off here, not interested in dimming. I want to be able to interrupt power to my skimmers and aquarium pumps, which is not an insignificant amount of amperage. (But nothing unusually high for a home circuit either)
You will HAVE to deal with 110V wiring! Use caution. But you should be able to make your own.
Have you seen those "inline" lamp cord switches? You would use this the same way. Where the inline switch makes and breaks a connection to turn the lamp on... so should you could connect "Normally Open CONTACTS" from the Solid State Relay.
The relay squid is cool, but it doesn't do three prong, which is a show stopper in this wet and ground fault installed application.
The X10 stuff is nice.... But their advertising makes me want to vomit. If they would just sell me stuff strait up instead of making me feel like I'm part of real life made for TV add campaign I'd buy from them more often. Maybe someone should clue them in and tell them to make a website for people like us without the nausea inducing market speak.
I like the relay idea. I was not aware of these optocoupled relays. It will save a lot of money of the X10 solution, even though the X10 solution would be more flexible and more professional. The project I'm working is already doing AC110V wiring anyway, so it won't be out of line to move to this sort of solution.
I'll see if I can find a part on digikey so the people who follow my DIY guide can source the part reliably.
There are also some lower-cost SSRs available surplus if you don't need to switch lots of Amps (All Electronics has some, too). I like those SIP modules because they make it easier to build things in ways that help keep your fingers away from the AC voltage.
In the end I've decided to go with the X10 solution, I can buy the parts from smarthome, so I don't have to deal with the vomit inducing x-10 website, and when bought new the SSR above is actually more than an X-10 module. I was also able to find 3 prong versions of the X10 modules on the smarthome website.
This will make dealing with this part of the design safe and easy, with the added benifit of being able to control unlimited amounts of pumps and lighting systems from a single controller.
Im curious if you are also planning on using the X-10 controller then for your project, or are you going to hack the X-10 modules to control them via arduino?
