RF Remote Control Switch DC 12V 10A relay 1CH Wireless Transmitter + Receiver

Lollie said:

RF Remote Control Switch DC 12V 10A relay 1CH Wireless Transmitter + Receiver

I am an artist. My latest project involves some electronic circuitry challenges, which I hope you can help me with. I am not very educated in the electronics field but have worked with basic circuitry and am very comfortable with a soldering iron.

Here is the description of my project:

I am suspending a piece of sculpture high up on the ceiling of a room. The main electronic part of this sculpture consists of:

1 A few LED illuminating fiber optics lamps (Chinese made fiber optic table lamp) powered by 3 x 1.5v AA batteries.

2 To be able to switch the lights on and off remotely, from below, I wired a 12v DC single channel switch relay and powered it by a 9v battery.

The whole set up works wonderfully except, I did not realize that the relay is constantly awake, listening for a signal. It draws a small current of around 10mA, while in the off mode, and drains my 9v power supply, in about 2 days. At this point, this set up, does not suit the purpose of being able to leave the sculpture suspended from the ceiling for a long period of time, as the battery drains too quickly. Ideally, I just want to be able to (remotely) switch the lights on at night for a few minutes at a time.

Being in Arizona, with plenty of sunshine, I thought of using a small solar collector panel (1”x2”) to trickle charge a rechargeable battery of some type to replace the 9V in the remote switch circuit. This way I would have enough reserve power to power the remote switch at will. The only time that I need to lower the sculpture down is to replace the 3AA batteries for the lights. The cavity of the sculpture, where the switch and battery are located, is about a 2” x 2” x 6”. I am hoping that you could advise me on the type of battery and solar collector, diode, converters, etc., to use. Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

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Lollie said:

Thank you everyone for your help.

K7elp60, your suggestion of replacing my current relay with a transistor to do the switching,

I found this: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1097

Is it a “transistor” type? They offer 4 types of switches 1. the M4 momentary, 2. theT4 Toggle and 3. the L4 Latch.

I think the toggle is the one suitable for this job. The main concern is: does it draw power while in the off position? I do have room for a bigger battery. The LED uses very little power, maybe I can combine the switch and light and use a single power source. I will need to get a different remote as this one, from adafruit, requires a different frequency. It’s still an RF remote. I was incorrect to assume that it was the receiver that was draining the battery.

I am game on the re-soldering too. The blue box has 4 pins. I assume we are going to replace it with a switching transistor. That way I can keep the existing receiver and use it with the existing remote.

The solar route: the old relay, that I have now, the blue box with white writing, I thought it was a latching relay. When energized I can hear a switching action within and I have a choice on the wiring with NO,NC,COM

This relay needs at lease 9V (rated at 12V) to trigger the coil, if we go with solar, I could use 2 x 5.54V rechargeable batteries and 2 of those 6V 100 mA panels. The panels will be permanently attached to the batteries. Dose that pose an overheating problem?

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