1402 Permissive Relay Tester construction nearly completed

RELAY TEST TOOL CONSTRUCTION

I bored out the hole for the power cords, inserted the grommets and then tied the cord strain relief inside. Began soldering grounds together, the +20V to the two relay module contacts and the +5V to the 0.1 ohm resistor leading to the bank of resistors hooked to the individual contacts.

Beginning to wire up the insides of the tester

I had some wiring to accomplish between the relay module and Arduino, set up all the grounds from power supplies to Arduino and the two relay test sockets, solder up headers for all the contact wires from the relay test sockets, and finally hook up my four LED units.

The pick and hold coils circuits were wired to the relays, including the snubber diodes that will short the back EMF as the coils are released. I partially wired the two LEDs that illuminate that will show when the pick and hold circuits are energized. The ground connection to the Arduino was installed, but there was still quite a bit more to do by midafternoon, mostly involving wiring stiff wires to small header pin ends.

When dinnertime arrived, I had all four LEDs wired in, the relay module connected to the Arduino, and the only wiring left to do was to hook the twelve contact leads (6 each for normally open and normally closed sides) to the header that connects to the analog input pins on the Arduino.

Early evening brought completion of all the wiring. Two of the header strips were left detached, giving me more working room to install the LEDs, but they only need to be plugged into the Arduino to complete all circuits. I carefully tested everything for shorts while I was wrapping up, so that as it is ready to have power applied.

Final tasks that will wait until Sunday include

• insulating all the bare metal soldered junctions, 
• inserting the proper grommets into the cover, 
• mounting the LEDs into the grommets,
• install the headers onto the Arduino and
• close up everything after testing

Too, I have to visit CHM over the weekend to pick up the current code (Arduino sketch) that matches the circuit. The major change is the addition of a 0.1 ohm resistor between +5V and the individual 33 ohm resistors feeding each contact.

The code adjusts the voltage measured on each contact (powered through its 33 ohm resistor) against the voltage at the junction with the 0.1 resistor. The contacts are connected to ground by the relay and any voltage above 0 at the contact is due to resistance in the contacts.