My setup is an arduino controlling an led via a mosfet. The led is connected to the 3.3V out of the arduino and the neg of the LED is plugged into the MOSFET. The base is controlled by setting a digital out to HIGH and allowing current to run through the LED. Pretty basic.
I am wondering if I can control an AC-driven string of light bulbs(120V) through the same setup, except I'd obviously not be powering the bulb with the arduino DC output. I can put together a schematic if my setup isn't clear.
As my title reads, can I control a MOSFET that is trying to run AC through it by an DC current? I definitely don't want to blow anything up here.
Do NOT use a MOSFET (Or anything else) without ISOLATION!!!! There should be no electrical connection between the Arduino and the AC power. This is for your safety as well as the Arduino's protection. A relay is safe. Mechanical relays use magnetic isolation. Solid state relays use optical isolation.
This looks like something that I might use, but it says the Vmax is 1.6.
That simply means you need to add an external resistor like you do with an LED. A solid-state relay uses optical isolation with an internal LED (that you can't see) on the input/control side and a phototransistor (or something similar) on the output/power side.
Most solid state relays have a built-in resistor and they will have an input-voltage rating (usually a fairly wide voltage range). But if there is no internal resistor, you can use the input current rating and calculate a resistor value for whatever control voltage you want to use (again, just like a regular LED).
why not use a triac? typically you'd use a triac optoisolator to drive a power triac, but you could just use a logic level power triac, and in TO-220 cases get the isolated kind or else the metal tab is energized, and you probably won't even need the input switching transistor Q
