Ok here is what i wanna do.
I have a lamp that uses 110V to lighten up. I wanna connect it some how with my Arduino and wanna lighten it up without using any other voltage. Is it possible to get 110V from Arduino somehow so that i can lighten up that 110 LAMP from Arduino instead of plugging it into a wall closet??
I don't think that this kind of thing is possible, even if you could boost up the arduino voltage to 110V it's going to be impossible to get the right amount of amps to light it up.
You would need a power inverter that could take the 5 (or 3) V DC from the Arduino board and output the 110 V AC. They exist (small black boxes for $10 or so), but someone more knowledgeable than me about the details of power will undoubtedly chime in here with warnings about calculating current loads.
No, not really possible. Even if you used a +5vdc to 110vac inverter the power available from an Arduino is less then 2.5 watts so that wouldn't light a very big lamp. Much more practical is to use a solid state AC relay or a plain relay that would interrupt the normal 110vac wall current to the lamp.
You need to explain better why you don't wish to use a 110vac wall outlet for the power source for the lamp. If this is for a portable application where no power is available then you would need a more traditional AC inverter powered from a large 12vdc battery to generate the 110vac for the lamp.
Lefty
You could however set it up so that the arduino pulls power from the same 110v power (some form of ac-dc) as the lamp so you only need to plug one thing in.
Alright, thats not a a good idea then, no worries, i ll try some other way out.
BTW what is with this solid state AC relay or a plain relay?? How to use them? Are their any tutorials on how to use them?
relays are electromagnetic switches
http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs1104/CircuitDesign/Mechanical.2.html
solid state means it performs the same action with no moving parts
Thanks, that was nice basic info but a little more detail about these relays will be much more help and how to use them with Arduino will be just perfect.
Just google Arduino + relay, that will give you lots of information.
Or check this playground topic:
The other things to consider if you want light without the mains:-
Use a low energy bulb and an inverter, this requires much less current than an incandescent lamp so is in the range of an inverter.
Consider using an array of white LEDs, these can be as bright as a normal bulb.
Has anybody tried doing this kind of project where arduino is used to control the lights for the room?
What is the most appropriate way to do this?
Well the best way to do this, is with the help of relays and transistors.
Here is how to connect them : Arduino Playground - HomePage
and some more info about relays : Relays
thanks for the replies.
BTW anybody tried X10 + Arduino for Home Automation (Controlling Room Lights)? I searched the internet but could not find great help.
anybody on x10 + arduino??
Multiple X10 projects here:
I searched the internet but could not find great help
What did you use for search terms?
http://www.google.com/search?q=arduino+x10
These are from the first page...
http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/X10
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1243974689
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1239988351
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1217562002
...
thanks for the links, i have gone through most of them but these are intermediate links and i m a noob to this electricity and arduino world, thats why couldnt understand most of the talkings in those links.
Has anybody tried doing this kind of project where arduino is used to control the lights for the room?
LEDs are probably the best form of low voltage lighting. They are not quite mainstream yet, so there's still a lot of hacker space. But you can build a pretty good setup with the knowledge available in these forums. You could easily do this for a room. The picture below is of my bike LED headlight working in bright daylight.
http://www.chesterfamily.org/gallery/ProjectsAndStuff/BikeGenAlt/Headlight/IMG_1269.jpg.html
The project is powered from a single 12V DC source for the LEDs and the Arduino. It's 24 watts of LED light and is as bright or brighter than the 125 watts or so of lamps I have in that room.
If all you wanted to do was light a room, you probably wouldn't need an Arduino. But if you wanted to do something fun and/or intelligent based on outside light or motion or something, then sure an Arduino is your solution.
My Project doesnt only include lighting my room using Arduino, i have other addons for my project as well, like controlling lights from Web, sensing my presence, clicking a pic if someone else intrudes. There are lots of things to do and i think arduino is best for all these things.