hey, have been wondering if any of you know if you can use the relays to switch residential (120 Volts). I would still use 12 volts for the relay coil, but would put a 120 volts line to pin 30, 87a & 87? cause i know the coil needs to be 12 volts, but the switch (30, 87a & 87) is not connected to the coil. The only problem i see is the AC line will interfere with the coils magnetic action of pulling the switch. anybody here tried it or knows if it is possible. if it is possible, endless possibilitys for the house too. I know they sell relays for house that run off 24 volt AC, but looked everywhere on net and can't find any
Aside from the ability to allow a relatively small electric signal to switch a relatively large electric signal, relays also offer electrical isolation between coil and contact circuits. This means that the coil circuit and contact circuit(s) are electrically insulated from one another. One circuit may be DC and the other AC (such as in the example circuit shown earlier), and/or they may be at completely different voltage levels, across the connections or from connections to ground.
To put it in simple kinda terms, a relay is an switch that is triggered electronically. There are 5 pins, the trigger (85), which can be something like an accessory wire or any other non-constant wire, ground (86), the input (30), the normally closed (NC) output (87a) and the normally open (NO) output (87). When there is no voltage in the input, there is continuity between pins 30 and 87a. When there is voltage, there is continuity between 30 and 87. It lets current flow based on an electronic event, which would be the trigger wire becoming live. They could be used for example to power neon lights in your trunk. If you wanted the lights to come on with your amp, you could run the remote line from your amp into pin 85, ground pin 86, put a small power wire coming from your amp on pin 87, and have pin 87a going out to your lights. Turn the amps on, relay coil becomes energized, and the lights turn on.
In that application, I'm just referring to a basic single pole, dual throw (SPDT) relay, which are the most common, but there are a million other types as well, but not to confuse you.
