@adwsystems hehehe oh nono, I have a positive voltage regulator (MC7805CT) I'm gonna try and use, should bring the voltage to a safe 5V I hope, I can't afford to smoke anything!
I'll try powering the optoisolator like you said and give some feedback
so, my understanding right now is that by powering JD-Vcc independently, I am bypassing the optoisolators/drivers. I'm not quite familiar with the optoisolator, is this the driver that is being bypassed? what kind of circuit do i need to build with the transistors to create the drivers? do i need one for each relay?