Sunday, January 21, 2007

Parallel port relay for playing with real world gadgets!


I've finally connected a relay to my parallel port! I got the circuit design from here. I can use the relay to control almost anything in my house. I have combined it with my gesture recognizer to allow me to control things with a laser pointer! Its fun. Using this with motion detection could also be a good idea. The computer would turn on lights whenever it senses motion. Anyway, check out the video above. I'm controling a table lamp with my computer.


I guess I could've connected upto eight relays, but I wanted to keep it simple. Besides, I might end up using a bluetooth relay board later on (or maybe even X10). :)

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

amazing work.........dat's automation...at it's real best....
Keep on doing this great work..

kernel_geek said...

Sweet you could (its been done before) control lights as a windows visulisation (diffrent lights turn on and of in time to music. Althought you would probally need to use opto-isolators.

Ashish Derhgawen said...

Cool idea! :)

Unknown said...

yes opto interface is the best method to protect parallel port.
i made a opto based relay board to switch on spindle for my CNC milling.

http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/5488/untitledid0.jpg

Anonymous said...

Nice work but man for the love of god protect that parallel port using an optoisolator(optocoupler optical isolator photocoupler call it what u want hehehe)

something like a 4n25

Unknown said...

Love your work,it is an inspiration for all of us wanna be hackers

Anonymous said...

hi men your work are so cool
can you give your mail? i have a cuestion do you know how to program in c# ?
ill give my email
if u can answer me ill really appreciate :)
ser_gio_blues@hotmail.com

Anonymous said...

Cool. You could control your lighting from batch file commands when you are about to start a game up. You know, ... dim the room for action, lol.

Anonymous said...

i want help from u for my project.
i want a software by wchich i can turn ON the parallel port relay s but with not any soft switches(push switches) i want each relay button in exe form so when i pushes it then the relay related to that .exe file will turn ON through that single double click in exe icon. PLZ help me urgently1

Anonymous said...

I want to help from you for my project.I want contact with status register of parallel port by C#.
How I do?

please!!!

advise s.aunging@gmail.com

mohd said...

wow.. thats cool..
do you know how to write code using vb for switching ON/OFF lights?

sorry my bad english.

Unknown said...

hey dude
ur wrk is too gud.. i hav to control a robot with keys....i hav made relay crkuts bt dont no how to mak program..so plz hlp me 4 duing dat.......
my email id is bhullar2201@gmail.com and fone nombr is +919779928146
9417516875
9023313123

Anonymous said...

hi... i already assemble a kit for turn on lamp 220V using LPT but it did not work...

can you give me scheme and part list, so i can assemble it correctly..

please e-mail me... cool_ice_funk@yahoo.com

thank you so much...

Anonymous said...

Hello Friend, I m Farid from Pakistan please tell me that which relay can be used wiyh parallel port of if u have scheme of it please send me as soon as possible on faridbond_007@hotmail.com

arvin said...

which relay u are asking abt (type of relays) ...semiconduter or mechanical


we used mechanical relays for our purpose

if any further query u can email me
bhullar2201@gmail.com

Sujoy said...

Where can I get this relay from? I'm getting around 2.2v from my parallel port,and can't find 1.5v relay in market. Please share your relay's complete specifications. And what name it's known in market?

Ashish Derhgawen said...

@Sujoy: I am using a 5V relay. You do not power the relay with your parallel port. You use an external power supply. The parallel port drives the relay with a transistor. The transistor works like a switch.

debarghya mukherjee said...

sir
i really need your help.i am a class 11 student and i am really passionate about robots.i have experience with electronics and microcontrollers andi have designed a robot recently that can interact with humans using speech recognition software and even has a camera for live video streaming on LAN network.i want a manual mode for this robot and the only thing possible and cheap is maybe using parallel port. i want a GUI application for it using visual basic only.it would be really nice if u teach me how to do this.problem is i have a 64bit computer. please help me on this . my email address : hapticsbot@gmail.com. thank you