So I'm finally tackling my first arduino based project with absolutely no electronic knowledge. My aim is to build an intervalometer remote for my camera. Eventually incorporating a light sensor to adjust the exposures.
I went off to my local electronic store and ended up with an "eleven" arduino uno, an LCD shield, a light sensor and various other stuff.
The LCD shield sits straight onto the eleven which is great but there is one piece which I got to avoid the camera getting fried and it's a Bestar BR-500 5vdc and for the life of me I can't work out where this goes on the eleven if that's even where it is meant to go.
Google says it is a 500 ohm reed relay.
You'll need to fit a diode to prevent damage to your Arduino when you turn it off.
Have a look a the Playground for examples of how to drive relays.
At 10mA coil current this could, to a certain extent, be driven direct from an Arduino digital pin, as long as you connect a schottky diode backwards across the coil to remove any back EMF when switching.
However, it would be much safer for the Arduino to isolate the relay's coil from the digital pin with a transistor and resistor (there are thousands of examples on the web - best bet is to do a google image search for "Arduino Relay")
Just looking at it, when I put the LCD shield on it takes up all of the analogue/digital/power pins. Is this going to cause a problem trying to attach the relay?
Just looking at it, when I put the LCD shield on it takes up all of the analogue/digital/power pins. Is this going to cause a problem trying to attach the relay?
Without knowing which shield you've got, difficult to say.