A Remotely Programable Relay Controller (Christmas Lights or Home Automation Controller)

Step 5 Construction

Start assembling the board by installing the components that are mounted on the back of the PCB - The 74HC08, 4 x 18pF Caps, 4 x 10uF caps, 3 x 0.1uF caps.  These are all surface mount, and are surprisingly simple to solder.  It just takes patience.

Next, install the wire jumpers - there are a total of 6 jumpers to install.  I can only make single sided PCBs at home, so this is a small price to pay for convenience.

After that, install the connectors, and IC sockets. Followed by the crystals, voltage regulators, diodes, and transistors.

Next, get a short length of cut off resistor lead, and install the ferrite bead, and the MagJack.  Note that this is a socket with magnetics installed.  Not just an RJ45 socket.

Finish by installing the LEDs, and relays.

There you have it - a competed controller board.

Once you have finished building the board, load the sketch up using the Arduino IDE, and a FTDI USB-232 cable from Sparkfun.  The FTDI cable is connected to the 6 pin header on the right side of the PCB.

Comments

[crorat]

(removed by author or community request)

[drj113]

The USB cable that I use for programming it has built in electronics to provide a TTL level (5v) serial port - there is no USB on the board.

It can be programmed using RS232 if you change the voltages.