Switch a power supply on and off with a TV?

I have the neutral side of the wall outlet going to the SSR. Not the 120V side. The 120V side is going straight to the load. I'll draw up what I have but excuse my lack of skills when it comes to drawing things. I'll post it up after I draw it.

Make it look like this cartoon:


I added to the original datasheet drawing. Then let me know if it works.

Ron

I was just about to post up a drawing of what I thought you were saying it was suppose to look like. Which your addition to the schematic made it make more sense and is exactly what I thought you were saying it should be like. So I will try that and get back to you.

Ok, I have....Hot goes to pin 2, pin one goes to the charger, charger goes to neutral. Still no lights. Tested neutral to pin 2 and I get 122.8VAC. Tested neutral to pin 1 and I get 3.11VAC.

Something isn't right. This is a pretty straight forward circuit. As long as the input side has correct polarity (Pin 3 + and pin 4 to Gnd) and we see around 1.1 or 1.2 volts on Pin 3 the SSR should turn on and the thing should work. Something you can try is remove the laptop power supply and replace it with a common household incandescent lamp. Like a 40 or 60 watt lamp. The lamp should turn on and off with the TV.

Ron

It seems like the SSR -is- turning on though cause it goes from 200mV when the TV is off to 3.11V when the TV is on. It's just not passing all of the voltage. I even disconnected the laptop charger and just tested the pins with no load and I got the same readings. I don't know entirely how solid state relays work (I know its a LED/optical sensor) but if it works anything like a normal mechanical relay I should still read the 120V regardless of having a load on it or not. I'll try hooking it up to a lamp though since you know more about this stuff then I do. Could it be possible that I have a DOA relay? I probably should have ordered more then one.

You pretty much called it. It's like the SSR is responding but not turning on all the way as it should. I would suggest lowering R1 but the drop you measured seems just about right. I'll be curious what the lamp does as the lamp will be a nice simple resistive load on the SSR. I had a feeling I should have just sent you a SSR I knew would work.

P.S. Eventually I am going to get offline and get some sleep.

Ron

Are the Sharp brand SSR's not that great? Should I look for a different brand? (Sorry if I'm keeping you up.)

EDIT: Also I just looked at all my lights in the house and they are all the energy saving fluorescent bulbs. I don't have any normal ones.

Ok, I found a normal incandescent bulb in my fridge. It's a 40W. Hooked it up to the wires coming out of the SSR. Powered it all on. No light at all. It wasn't even dim. So I'm going to assume the SSR is DOA. Is there a better brand to look for other then this Sharp? Either that or I'm going to order like 3-4 of these Sharp SSR's just in case I get another DOA I'll already have more to use.

AznGothic said:

Ok, I found a normal incandescent bulb in my fridge. It's a 40W. Hooked it up to the wires coming out of the SSR. Powered it all on. No light at all. It wasn't even dim. So I'm going to assume the SSR is DOA. Is there a better brand to look for other then this Sharp? Either that or I'm going to order like 3-4 of these Sharp SSR's just in case I get another DOA I'll already have more to use.

Click to expand...

OK, that pretty much does point to a bad SSR. Sharp should be as good as any brand. When I was working I used mostly Crydom SSRs but for the better part hey all do about the same thing. Panasonic / Aromat is another brand, A Panasonic AQN121 should work, A Carlo Gavazzi RM1A23D25 should work, A Crouzet GNA5 Series 84134900 should work, A Magnecraft W6210DSX-1 should work and that is to name a few. They run about $20 USD. No clue what you paid for the Sharp brand. Next time we should start using the lamp to verify he thing works.

Ron

I paid $4.90 for the Sharp.

That would be the least expensive then. If you want give the Sharp another shot.

Ron

Have you ever heard of this one? **broken link removed**

Never heard of them but that doesn't mean much as there are a hundred companies marketing these things. Truth be know most are likely made in a garage in China and OEM with a hundred names.

They all do about the same thing and the one you linked to is output rated at 3 Amps Maximum. I forgot how much current you needed?

When I used these things in design I normally went with reputable parts from reputable US distributors and used the more expensive units. Then too, I wasn't spending my money.

Ron

The power supply has it listed as 1.2A max on the AC side. Also I read a few of the data sheets on a bunch of different brands that were also stating heat sinks were optional but if you don't use a heatsink then you can't draw more then half of the rated amperage. So I guess on the Sharp SSR's, since it also says a heatsink is optional, that if I'm only drawing 1.2A and the SSR is rated for 8A then I don't need a heatsink. I went ahead and ordered 2 more Sharp and one of the ones I just linked you. One of them is bound to work. I also ordered 187 Ohm resistors just in case the 200 Ohm resistor is causing an issue. But a lot of the SSR's that have a 1.2V typical input say 1.4V max and 0.9V minimum. So I'm assuming the 200 Ohm resistor shouldn't be causing an issue. I'll post back when I get the new stuff in and let you know how it turns out. I really appreciate all the help you have been giving me.

OK, I had forgotten what the AC load current was. Back to waiting for parts.

Once you get the parts we will see how this goes. Have a good day.

Ron

I'm severely confused at this point. I got the new stuff in. I'm using one of the Sharp SSR's. I wired up the DC side with the 187 Ohm resistor. On the AC side I went from pin 2 to hot and pin 1 I just soldered a wire to it which will be going to the load later. I also have a wire coming out of the neutral side on the TV which will go to the load later. So now I decide before I do anything else, I'm going to test it all. I hook up my meter to the SSR pin 1 and to the neutral. I plug the TV in. I get 16VAC. I'm rather surprised at such a high leakage in the OFF state. But that's ok for now. I turn the TV on. I register 120VAC. I turn the TV back off, I get 16VAC. Well the SSR definitely seems to be working!! So I finish up my wiring. I solder everything to the load. Turn the TV on, I get nothing. So I measure everything with my meter. I'm getting 3.15VAC with the TV on and around 158mVAC with the TV off. What is going on?! So I unsolder everything again, hook up my meter to the SSR with no load. Turn the TV on, I get 120VAC. Turn the TV off I get 16VAC. I'm thinking the laptop charger might not be working right? So I solder the AC plug back into the charger and plug it into the wall. It turns on just fine. So I leave the AC connector in the charger, pull the cord out of the wall and use my meter with some alligator clips to clip the SSR Pin 1 and the neutral to the end of the wire that plugs into the wall. I just verified that the charger DOES work and the SSR DOES work. With the SSR pin 1 clipped to the cord and the neutral clipped to the other pin on the cord I plug the TV in. I'm getting roughly 163mVAC. I turn the TV on and I get 3.15VAC. Now I guess it would be good to mention the laptop charger has 3 pins for hot, neutral and earth ground. The TV only has 2 for hot and neutral. Could the fact that I'm not sending earth ground and only hot/neutral cause the laptop charger to go into a saftey state that prevents it from turning on?

EDIT: I have a lamp with a florescent bulb in it. I just grabbed the lamp and clipped pin 1 of the SSR to the power cord on the lamp and the neutral wire to the power cord as well. I have my meter on it. Here's the weirdness that I found from doing this. I turn the TV on with the lamp on and I get 3 to 4VAC. I leave the TV on and I hit the switch on the lamp to turn the lamp off and the voltage shoots to 122VAC. Turn the lamp on again and it goes down to 3VAC. What the deuce? Did I buy a relay that's normally closed?!? If I switch the lamp on and off repeatedly really fast, the bulb will flash on for a split second. The description of the relay says SPST-NO so I assumed that meant single pole single throw normally open. At least that is what it would have meant on a mechanical DC relay.

Before I forget this is a good read on SSRs.

Sometimes an SSR can be fussy about the type load they see. That is why I suggested using a plain incandescent lamp as a load. You are running a simple 120 VAC hot and neutral switching the hot. There aren't many reasons this shouldn't work and really none that I can think of. Granted I am not sure what the laptop charger looks like to the SSR. Within the SSR the input side and output side are totally isolated from each other. The SSR you are using, looking at the data sheet is a N/O (Normally Open) SSR.

If I take an SSR with no load at all it isn't unusual to see 120 volt leakage but with the SSR off that 120 volts goes away as soon as a load is placed in the line. The load need only be a few mA in most cases. So what you are seeing with the fluorescent lamp fixture doesn't surprise me. I am not sure what the laptop charger looks like as a load to the SSRs you have.

Now I guess it would be good to mention the laptop charger has 3 pins for hot, neutral and earth ground. The TV only has 2 for hot and neutral. Could the fact that I'm not sending earth ground and only hot/neutral cause the laptop charger to go into a saftey state that prevents it from turning on?

Click to expand...

You may be into something with that. If you can, try the lamp from the fridge again. Just looking for a load that works well and correctly. Just a simple 2 wire resistive load.

Ron

I'll have to run to home depot. I didn't have a socket to put the bulb into last time when testing it and felt extremely uncomfortable and unsafe. So I'm going to buy a standard light bulb socket to hook some wires into with a light bulb for testing. That way I'm not actually holding wires that are hot (no worries, I did use electrical gloves last time.....still felt unsafe though). I'm currently wiring up the other relay brand that I purchased. I'll run to home depot to buy the socket after I'm done soldering my connections with this relay.

I finished wiring up the IXYS relay. It works. I see roughly 158mVAC with the TV off and when I turn the TV on it goes to 119.7VAC and the LED's turn on. Perhaps I should just never buy Sharp relays ever again? I never did care for any of their consumer products like TV's and radio's......I guess I can add SSR's to that list. I'm going to leave the IXYS relay in place and not use the Sharp relay. Should I still go buy a light bulb socket and such to test the Sharp? I'm curious on why the Sharp didn't work. Or does this just prove the Sharp relay is bad?