Remote Control Power Strip

Step 6 Construction

I soldered each relay to a piece of perfboard and then used the small holes on the back of each outlet to hold the leads of the power wire in place. In order to save a lot of time I used the "power track" of the power strip I destroyed to hold the 120VAC leads from each socket-relay pair.

In the final project I used outputs 1-6 of the SIS-7C to control each socket. Make sure that you wire pin 13 or the "Mode Select" pin to ground (conveniently pin 14). This allows each output to act as a toggle so the circuit won't switch off when you release the button on the remote control.

In order for the IR receiver to be "seen" by the remote it obviously has to be visible and not hiding under your desk or table. This is what the insulated wrapping wire is for. Connect about 4 ft of wire to each lead on the IR receiver and twirl it around until it forms a simple signal cord. This was made much easier by hanging a wrench or something heavy on the end of the wires and spinning that around. Make sure to keep track of which wire is which before twirling so you can properly hook it up after your done.

It is handy to program the SIS-7C before soldering it into its final resting place but in case it loses its memory or if I want to reprogram it, I added a couple dead wires to the "Learn" and "Program Status" pins.