[Fixed!] Strange relay behaviour, not switching on/off on GPIO 0/1 command.

[Shardan]

Alternatively you can use a small NPN transistor (2N2222 or similiar) or FET (2N7000 or similiar) between "In1" and ground.
Then you may drive the LED with 5 V too from the relay's voltage (Jumper Vcc -JDVcc closed).

Regards
Shardan

[DeNB3rt]

Hi Shardan and Costo

Thanks for the feedback.
I did not have a lot of time the last day's do I did not see that feedback.

So yesterday, I tried to sort some things out...
I thought, why not replacing the relay board with a spare board just to test?

Left side new board, right side old board. (here you can see my board version)
That setup seems to do what it should.


So I had to shut of the mains to replace the AC~ cables to the new relay.
After doing so and turning on the power again, the nodemcu/espeasy board did not came online again.
Weird, I did a few restarts and checked dhcp, no other ip...
Connected with usb cable to serial monitor and I saw some unreadable chars...
switched baud rate from 1152000 to all other options and found out that 74880 was showing one line

Code: Select all

  ets Jan  8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(3,6)

I thought, fuck it, I'll replace it with another nodemcu on my breadboard (it was becoming darker outdoors and my wife was becoming angry that the lights did not work ).
flashed the latest espseasy and reconfigured it, working!

So for now, all stuff is running again like it should I'll monitor the behaviour and I keep you guy's updated Thankss!

[DeNB3rt]

Dammit, setup was working perfectly for about 2 weeks (controlling my living and kitchen lights with domoticz app, web interface and MQTT button on another esp )
But since yesterday, again a similar problem like before.
The relay was not reacting anymore on any command.
But the leds on the opto do enlight/shutoff when I make gpio 1/0.
It looks like the coil does not get enough power to get triggered.

I make it more weird, I cut off the power to the relay board, restarted the ESP and connected the relay back like before (vcc 5v).
Everything is working fine again now?
PSU do deliver 5v 2a max.

[papperone]

May I ask you which type of PSu are you using?
In a friend of mine setup he had similar issue despite the "beefy" PSU (1.5A) but at the end the final solution was to replace it for another one!
I provided him a 700mA PSU which I normally use for all my project (HLK-PM01) mounted on a small PCB with varistor in parallel to the AC input and fuse on the Live line and since then (more than 2 months) no more problem!

[DeNB3rt]

Hi Paperpone

I'm using a 230~ 5V- smartphone charger.
I already tested with an iphone or samsung charger, but same shit

The weird thing now, is that I am not able to trigger both coil's at the same time, crasy shit
If I trigger both coils, the first triggered coil will enable, the 2nd will stay off (but optical led will enlight).
When I shutoff the first coil, the second will enable.
if I do the inverse, the 2nd will trigger.
So the behavior is predictable.

I will try to use two boards with only one relay per board to see what happens.
It's time to buy Eltako's I think

[toffel969]

Hi Paperpone

I'm using a 230~ 5V- smartphone charger.
I already tested with an iphone or samsung charger, but same shit

The weird thing now, is that I am not able to trigger both coil's at the same time, crasy shit
If I trigger both coils, the first triggered coil will enable, the 2nd will stay off (but optical led will enlight).
When I shutoff the first coil, the second will enable.
if I do the inverse, the 2nd will trigger.
So the behavior is predictable.

I will try to use two boards with only one relay per board to see what happens.
It's time to buy Eltako's I think

For switching AC I can really recommend the SSR-Relays from Pollin http://www.pollin.de/shop/dt/NjYzOTU2OT ... 80_V_.html. They switch reliably with the current that the ESP GPIOs can sink and will not stick/ have mechanical units. Due to reliability issues (and therefore an angry wife), I swapped many of the electromagnetic relays for SSR. Beware they can only switch AC

[grovkillen]

Great pointer Toffel!

[DeNB3rt]

And it's fixed!
Don't hit me, le dumb me found the easy fix ...
I experimented with breadboards with external PSU and everything worked fine in test.
But in my wall switch setup, I was using an 5v 2Amps usb power supply.
Never thought that could be the issue, but there must be a power regulator or something like that on my nodeMCU board.
So I was draining power from the 5V pin on the nodeMCU board, thinking I was taking direct psu power....
That caused the strange behaviour.
After giving 5v power directly to the relay board, everything was working fine (stupid me)

See youtube illustration before/after:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6xgu1o1jh0