[TowerTalk] BCD relay driver ideas needed

[Roger (K8RI)]

On 5/30/2010 12:27 PM, Pete Smith wrote:
> I bought an Ameritron RCS-10 antenna switch at Dayton, particularly
> because of its BCD control protocol.  My thought was to use the BCD band
> data output from my shack computer, running N1MM Logger, to control the
> remote relay box in parallel with the manual controller.  But in order
> to do that, I will need 3 relay drivers to supply the needed current,
> and presumably, will also need a level shifter because the relays want
> 12 volts, while my LPT port is 5.
>
>    
I build a number of these for adding streams to Gas and Liquid 
Chromatographs  (GLCs).  The output was BCD, I went to RadioShack picked 
up a single decoder and the number of optoisolators to match the number 
of relays/valves. RS had all the parts, they cost well less than $10 
each and took about 15 to 20 minutes each to build on perf board.

73

Roger (K8RI)
> Has anyone already been down this road, so I won't have to reinvent the
> wheel?  Is there a way to use traditional PNP transistor source drivers,
> but with 5 volts on the base and 12 volts on the collector?
>
> 73, Pete N4ZR
>
> The World Contest Station Database, updated daily at www.conteststations.com
> The Reverse Beacon Network at http://reversebeacon.net, blog at reversebeacon.blogspot.com
>
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TowerTalk mailing list
> TowerTalk at contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
>
>