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I bought an arduino kit, and it came with, amongst other things, a 5v relay to control 120-220v.

The relay is only that, there is only the 5 pin relay, and it's not on a board on which one can screw in the leads

enter image description here

I was wondering how I can use it.. i.e. how do I mount it somehow (especially since the leads are metric and most perf board is standard (or vice-versa)).

I don't mind soldering the 5v control leads from the arduino, but I'm not so sure about soldering or connecting 110v straight on the relay. i'm worried about long term longevity.

I have soldered longer leads just to be able to fit it on a board for tests, but those are tiny, and aren't safe for higher voltage/current.

Any suggestions? Thanks, Seb.

Michel Keijzers
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Sebastien Tremblay
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  • This question is not about Arduino, but DO NOT connect mains to the relay - this would violate all the basic safety rules. – Milliways Jan 17 '19 at 05:16

1 Answers1

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What I did with a similar looking 'module' (An AC/DC converter), was to use a protoboard/perfboard. Some holes fitted in the existing holes, others I drilled with a small drill.

On the back you can solder the wires you need, so for the 110V wires you might use thicker wires than for the controls.

Than if you want to make it fancy, you add some terminal blocks to connect the external wires too. Terminal blocks looks like this:

enter image description here

Michel Keijzers
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  • thanks for the answer. so you're saying I should simply make the relay fit on a perfboard, then bring the 110v wires right to it. or make a bridge with actual 110v wires rather than soldering or smaller wires. at this point is there an advantage to using a perfboard at all instead of simply soldering straight to the relay? would it be to solidify the whole aparatus; have some form of a structure? – Sebastien Tremblay Jan 17 '19 at 03:13
  • well actually you do not really 'use' the perfboard, only a fixed straight piece of material. So you also can use any other material; do not use the small wires from the perf board for 110/220V. The main reason to use perfboard, is you can have the relay fixed and also put the remainder of your (logic level) signals throught the perfboard. Or you can can use pin headers to 'mount' the 'relay perf board' on top of the real circuit, and connect the 110/220V wires directly to the pins of the relay. – Michel Keijzers Jan 17 '19 at 09:56