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Step 6OK, now let's get connecting...
For those of you who don't know. Yes I understand that there are a lot of people who do, but for those who don't. The following was written for you. Let's learn a little about electrical wiring shall we? The cord you should be using will have 3 wires. If their color coded the white one is the neutral. That's the one we connect directly to the outlets and the board. It's best to use some sort of buss connector like a screw terminal strip with bridge clips. If that's a little too much for you just put a white wire on one of the silver screws of each outlet and one to the contact of the board that had the white wire on it. Then take the other end of them and use a wire nut to connect them together. You could also solder them and put electrical tape over the connection but that isn't near as safe. The tape could degrade and leave the exposed wire to short out against the components on the inside of your project. That is a fire and shock hazard.
The green wire or in some cords, the one in the middle, is the ground. This is the path for major spikes of electricity to jump towards in the event of a lightning strike. It's better the ground wire takes the jolt than you. If you used a metal case I want to congratulate you. That is the safest enclosure for this project. In a metal case you can drill a hole in the side and use one of the machine screws and a nut salvaged from the microwave to attach a ground to the case. For that you can take the piece of wire that was attached in the microwave's ground and reuse it here. For those of you using wood as your enclosure type you'll need to attach a piece of wire to the green screws on your outlets and wire nut them together with the ground of the cord. This isn't necessary with a metal enclosure because the frame of the outlet where the wire would normally be attached is touching the metal of the case. Therefor if you ground the case the outlets are grounded too.
The last wire is the hot wire. This is the one that goes to the board and from the output of the board (after the relay) to each of the outlets' brass screw. This connects them with the proper polarity so we won't get shocked if we touch the outside of a lamp socket. That's why most lamp cords have polarized plugs on them. The fat side of the plug is the neutral. That way if you go to turn on the lamp in the dark barefoot on a concrete floor, you don't get a nasty surprise. This is why I get after people for filing or cutting those off. They do it so they can plug them into regular nonpolarized outlets. That is a phenomenally bad idea. Remember the cement floor? That's a ground too. You can get a serious jolt if things aren't hooked up properly. That's why the world has electricians. So people who are clueless don't die.
We'll attach the cord in the next step so don't do that just yet.
The green wire or in some cords, the one in the middle, is the ground. This is the path for major spikes of electricity to jump towards in the event of a lightning strike. It's better the ground wire takes the jolt than you. If you used a metal case I want to congratulate you. That is the safest enclosure for this project. In a metal case you can drill a hole in the side and use one of the machine screws and a nut salvaged from the microwave to attach a ground to the case. For that you can take the piece of wire that was attached in the microwave's ground and reuse it here. For those of you using wood as your enclosure type you'll need to attach a piece of wire to the green screws on your outlets and wire nut them together with the ground of the cord. This isn't necessary with a metal enclosure because the frame of the outlet where the wire would normally be attached is touching the metal of the case. Therefor if you ground the case the outlets are grounded too.
The last wire is the hot wire. This is the one that goes to the board and from the output of the board (after the relay) to each of the outlets' brass screw. This connects them with the proper polarity so we won't get shocked if we touch the outside of a lamp socket. That's why most lamp cords have polarized plugs on them. The fat side of the plug is the neutral. That way if you go to turn on the lamp in the dark barefoot on a concrete floor, you don't get a nasty surprise. This is why I get after people for filing or cutting those off. They do it so they can plug them into regular nonpolarized outlets. That is a phenomenally bad idea. Remember the cement floor? That's a ground too. You can get a serious jolt if things aren't hooked up properly. That's why the world has electricians. So people who are clueless don't die.
We'll attach the cord in the next step so don't do that just yet.
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