This Design Idea shows how to use a 63¢ (Q=1) microprocessor reset voltage detector IC in a relay coil drive circuit to greatly reduce the coil’s hold-in current. When asked to estimate the coil ...

How many remote controls do you have in your home? Don’t you wish all these things were better integrated somehow, or that you could add remote control functionality to a random device? It’s a common ...

Fig. 1: Add this relay to prevent shorted transistors in the MW-1. Usually after a transmitter is discontinued, any hope of upgrades or improvements fades. Some enterprising engineers can’t help but ...

An RC circuit in series with the coil allows full-current turn-on for reliable relay operation, then reduces the current to save power. Fellow engineer Sanjay R. Chendvankar of Mumbai, India, recently ...

Relays usually are driven using optocouplers, which offer isolation between analog and digital grounds to ensure that switching currents in the relay coils do not affect the noise margin of the ...

I recently installed a new stereo head-unit in my car. One of the challenges with installing this head-unit was that a certain wire from the harness needed to be grounded, but only after the radio had ...

Ladder logic uses switch or relay contacts to implement Boolean expressions. In years past, ladder logic was made possible with discrete relays and was sometimes termed “relay logic.” Today most ...

In electronic and industrial automation systems, relay modules play a crucial role by allowing low-power control signals to switch high-power devices. Selecting between a 5V relay module and a 12V ...

Large scale digital logic began not with the vacuum tube but the electromechanical relay. Although vacuum tubes were available at the time – and were used on competing machines – Konrad Zuse chose to ...

Potential relays are commonly found on many smaller, single-phase, capacitor-start, capacitor-run motors in the HVACR industry. Their function is to assist in starting the electric motor. Potential ...