Post 3: Switches and Relays

Here are today's assortment of interesting parts!

On the left is a simple push button used to control the contact between two/more parts of an electrical assembly (the ON portion and the part you want to control upon pressing the button).

The orange box in the center is a DPDT relay and the component on the right is a capacitator, but we'll get to those in a bit!

Here's a quick circuit using one of these push buttons and an LED to visualize the effect:

 

Using two LEDs attached to separate outputs of the same push button results in one light always being on, depending on if the button is pushed or not:

  

Okay so now we get to use the orange box! In this circuit it is supposed to utilize an electrified coil and two switches to manipulate a variety of configurations in a circuit.

This specific config. is built to switch what LED is on by sending voltage through the magnetic coil on the bottom pins of the relay!


 

 




Here's a diagram to get a better idea of what I'm talking about.

 

Whenever the coil on the bottom sends out magnetic waves, it changes the contact of the two pins!

So here is the circuit in action!

Now we get to try using the capacitor!

The capacitor is like a tiny battery, it gets charged up whenever in a circuit and expends its energy in turn.

By putting this into the circuit with the relay, an oscillating relay is constructed, causing the electricity from the capacitor to also magnetize the coils and re-do what the original connection did. This is seen as a very quickly (and by quickly I mean fast as all hell) flashing in the two LEDs when the push button connection is made.

A great example of this can be seen in this clip:

Hopefully is doesn't just seem like both lights are on at the same time, watch closely to see them quickly switch.

Well! That concludes Day 3, after these exercises is some boring VEX robot inventory that I don't think would be interesting to document, but feel free to check out the link to the actual building of it that I will try to document in step by step format!