Swinks,
Thanks so much for sharing this with others!
Zedmen:
We're editing the videos now which demonstrate how to work with surface mount components, starting with a plain old soldering iron and spool of solder. Then I continue upgrading tools as I complete the board. I work through using solder paste instead of solder wire, using an inexpensive hot air station, and end with using a $20 hot plate (The kind college kids use in their dorm rooms) to do reflow.
The project's main purpose was to demonstrate working with surface mount components. I figured it would be more fun for pinheads to build a project that was pinball related. Also, it had to be easy to explain and cheap. You could burn up 3 boards practicing to build the board and only be out $15.
As an example, I brought one of these boards to a friends house last night. It turned out that I goofed and mounted the 4 pin SSR to the board backwards. I was able to de-solder it from the board without damaging it so I could turn it around and re-solder it to the board. All I had were needle nosed pliers, a spool of small gauge solder, and a Weller soldering iron. My point is, dig in and demystify SMT soldering.
Marty:
Yea, there are a lot of ways this could go. There are also some other solid state relays that could handle up to 2 amps, but they got expensive. I could have used a fet but I really wanted to keep both electrical sources isolated from each other and felt that the 400ma optically isolated relay gave the proper balance between isolation, cost, and usefulness. You can drive a few bulbs or 15 - 20 LEDs with 400ma. Not bad for $5.
This board is powered by the GI when it's on. I was a little afraid of the gate on a mosfet floating when there was no input power. I wasn't sure if pulling it down to ground would be enough to keep it to from floating when there really isn't a ground when the AC power is cut off.
Also, I have a product called the PIG 2 that has high power mosfets, can use Lamps, GI, Flashers, Switches, Optos, motors, 24v coils as an input signal to trigger mods. It has a configurable microcontroller on board with a removable memory card which allows you to control servos and to make mods flash, fade, blink, pulse, or whatever else you can imagine. All of that started with the question of "How do I make a mod go on and off with GI". I guess my point is that continuing to add requirements to a single product can build a monster. :)
Thanks again for giving it a look. I plan on putting together other pinball related open source projects.
