Hello!
In a quest to fully automate my life and turn myself into a robot (just kidding), I've finally stumped myself on quite a simple mechanical problem.
What I wanted to do was control different aspects of my room using the parallel port-- lights, fan, curtains etc. Working on the lights, I did not want to use a relay to switch on power from Mains as I am not very comfortable with working with 120V of electricity.
So I devised a plan-- I have a power strip that has a switch on it. I shall plug in the lamp lights into that power strip. Now, I just need to somehow turn that switch on and off. I mean physically, I need something to either press the switch according to parallel port signals.
The switch is a standard rocker switch-- one side allows power to the plugged appliances, and one side turns them off.
I've been thinking what the best way to do this would be. I tried using a magnet attached to the switch vertically, with two magnetic actuators (took magnetic wire, wound it) placed on either side of the switch. I tried applying power to the actuators in hopes that the magnet would quickly rock one way or the other using magnetic force, but that did not work.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much,
-Omar
In a quest to fully automate my life and turn myself into a robot (just kidding), I've finally stumped myself on quite a simple mechanical problem.
What I wanted to do was control different aspects of my room using the parallel port-- lights, fan, curtains etc. Working on the lights, I did not want to use a relay to switch on power from Mains as I am not very comfortable with working with 120V of electricity.
So I devised a plan-- I have a power strip that has a switch on it. I shall plug in the lamp lights into that power strip. Now, I just need to somehow turn that switch on and off. I mean physically, I need something to either press the switch according to parallel port signals.
The switch is a standard rocker switch-- one side allows power to the plugged appliances, and one side turns them off.
I've been thinking what the best way to do this would be. I tried using a magnet attached to the switch vertically, with two magnetic actuators (took magnetic wire, wound it) placed on either side of the switch. I tried applying power to the actuators in hopes that the magnet would quickly rock one way or the other using magnetic force, but that did not work.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much,
-Omar