These are solid state, so yes “driving” the relay, but its a solid state relay which means its more of a mosfet setup that just needs a small signal in.
Set up as GPIO should activate these relays just fine.
I am very familiar with those relays. The one you linked is only appropriate for fairly high voltage AC applications, and switching a DC load (typical of robotics) is often problematic on that style. There are similar solid state relays designed for DC loads.
Share your parameters, or we really can’t be of further help.
ArduPlane Param 6_17_24.param (19.4 KB)
We’re getting more relays (DC this time) and we’re planning on actuating them the same.
I’ve actually gotten the output working now (custom firmware I was sent), and able to consistently activate an optocoupler, but now the optocoupler is way too low on the output voltage. We want 12VDC out and due to high resistance its only 8V at the other end.
we’re planning on replacing the optocoupler with the DC solid state
Is this a Cube Orange?
What custom firmware? What does it do? Why?
Unfortunately I don’t know much about the custom firmware. It came from another engineer who is also working these problems with me who is an expert on a lot of this backend stuff. Its mostly to fiddle with asymmetric flap actuation or the like.
He said something about the board not reading the main pin value prior to setting it, leading it to always read as “low” and didn’t allow us to set the pin to low from high.
Cube orange+
Being that its now working, it should work with the DC solid state relays, yes?
It sounds like you are trying to get relay output on IOMCU (main out). You need to use FMU pins for relays (Aux out).
Seems your custom firmware might enable IOMCU relay switching, but I can’t help with that.
Yes, relays on the main pins since the aux pins capped out at 3.3V which turned into ~2V at the other end. which wasn’t enough to get a signal through.
The custom firmware did help with this. Although it seems like this functionality should be baseline from what I’ve read on setting GPIO pins from the documentation.
Thank you for the help and troubleshooting
The relays you’re using should trigger at 3v3. I’ve used similar many times. Whatever wire and connections you used had a large voltage drop. Examine that before continuing down the custom firmware route.
I was seeing this behavior like the other user. almost identical voltage too. Im wondering if this is a symptom of trying to activate one of these relays, or if we both have some wacky wiring.
For reference, I only have signal out coming off the Cube+ board into the relay, and then out of the relay it connects to ground.
Do I need any protection like a diode on the ground wire that won’t allow it to backfeed? its a common ground.
What Arduino? That could be your problem…
Common ground shouldn’t be an issue unless you have some errant voltage potential on it (that shouldn’t exist). That’s kind of the expectation.
The behavior you’re describing about low voltage and lack of control sounds a lot more like improper config than bug or hardware issue. But custom firmware makes that moot to troubleshoot.
sorry, I meant Ardupilot. I often mistake the 2 names