I want to use my pic to turn on a 12V relay in a car. The way the relay is wired up now, the vehicles computer ground the relay control wire and the relay kicks on (ie: the relay has supply always connected and triggeed by grounding the control pin)
My original plan was to use the pic and ground the control wire with a pic pin. However, I did some reasing and found out that as much as 1amp can be drawn when the relay switches on... I dont think the pic will be happy with 1amp sinking into it. (am i wrong?)
So I decided a transistor would be a good idea. I asked somthing about the problem and someone told me an N-Channel Transistor would allow me to use 12V through it but be triggered by the 5V output of a pic.
But I figured that now, I'm not sending 12V throught the transistor, I'm using it to connect 2 grounds. (see diagram)
Can I still do this?
My original plan was to use the pic and ground the control wire with a pic pin. However, I did some reasing and found out that as much as 1amp can be drawn when the relay switches on... I dont think the pic will be happy with 1amp sinking into it. (am i wrong?)
So I decided a transistor would be a good idea. I asked somthing about the problem and someone told me an N-Channel Transistor would allow me to use 12V through it but be triggered by the 5V output of a pic.
But I figured that now, I'm not sending 12V throught the transistor, I'm using it to connect 2 grounds. (see diagram)
Can I still do this?