Opto-coupler Plug (v2)
The Opto-coupler Plug is a small board containing a dual opto-coupler. It can be used to detect the presence of low DC voltages (a few dozen volts) and currents (milliamps) without creating a direct electrical connection to any other circuits.
Both input circuits consist of a built-in LED which must be driven with ? 3 .. 55 mA of current. Two 1 kΩ series resistors are included, which allow using this board with 3 .. 12 V DC sources. Other resistor values can be used for higher or lower voltages.
The new v2 board can now also be used as dual opto-coupled output interface, where each channel acts as a (polarized) switch, based on the built-in photo transistor. The output current is limited to 60 mA max. Note: the solder jumpers need to be shorted out to use this as an output board.
This plug is wel-suited for low-voltage use. Use of this dual opto-coupler and the connectors at higher voltages such as AC mains is not supported - you should only do this if you know what you're doing, and at your own risk!
The terminal blocks used on this plug are detachable and use a standard 3.5 mm grid. The two inputs have separate connectors.
The pins are laid out as two independent pairs. Each pair is an electrically isolated LED with no connection to the rest of the circuit. LEDs are polarized and should be properly connected to power +/-.
Configuration
The board can be populated as either an input plug or an output plug. The choice determines how the IC socket should be soldered on, as well as where to use resistors and set the solder jumpers:
Header Pinouts
Design Info
Dimensions: 21.1 x 34.0 mm
CadSoft EAGLE design files: see below.
This plug can be operated at 5V as well as 3.3V.
This board uses the conventions of a JeePlug and can be used with the ports on a JeeNode. It can also be used with other boards and MCU's, if you hook it up properly and adapt the interface code for it.
How to Get It
http://jeelabs.com/products/opto-coupler-plug
Related Weblog Posts
- 2010-08-20 - Meet the Opto-coupler Plug
- 2010-10-29 - Meet the new Opto-coupler Plug
