Hello again all! Hope you are doing well.
I’m looking to do a project with electromagnets, and long story short will need the access controller, when activated via chip, to turn the power OFF, with the non-activated, resting state being power ON-- opposite of its current configuration.
Is this possible? My gut says no, but my brain says there’s probably a way. I don’t know too much about the physical configuration of the access controller, or the modality of it-- haven’t had a chance to look it over yet.
Thank you in advance!
Are you familiar with relays?
I have not had a good look at the xAC V2, but there may actually be a functionality built in.
A little, honestly not as much as I should be considering my hobbies.
From what I understand, the xAC v2 has an NO (normally open) relay system, whereas I basically need the opposite, a normally closed (NC) relay.
How it’s set up currently would be great for fail-secure door locks, such as the one Amal used in his DangerousThings YT demonstration, so the resting state is the lock has no power and locks itself, whereas I’d need it to have power continuously in the resting state and only turn off when I scanned my chip.
@amal, sorry to tag you, I was wondering if adding an NC relay in between the power source and the xAC v2 would work, or should I use an SPDT, or DPDT relay between the lock, power source and xAC…?
Any help is appreciated! TYIA!
Check that video again… the xAC v2 relay has both NC and NO wires for the onboard relay.
Relay wiring and operation
The relay wires are white, yellow, and green. The white wire is the common pin on the relay, yellow is NO (normally open), and green is NC (normally closed). The common wire (white) is the relay pin that will be connected to either the NC (green) pin or NO (yellow) pin, depending on if the relay is active. In the normal state, the common (white) pin is connected to the NC (green) pin. This might be useful for keeping a magnetically locked door secure, since power must be flowing to the magnet to keep the door locked. Once an authorized tag is scanned, the relay is activated and the common (white) pin loses connection with the NC (green) pin, and instead the common (white) pin and the NO (yellow) pin are connected. Once the timer runs out, the relay is deactivated and the common pin loses connection with the NO pin and reconnects with the NC pin. To change the amount of time the relay stays active on authorized tag scan, change jumper S1. When S1 is bridging pins 1 and 2, the relay is active for 5 seconds on authorized tag scan. When S1 is bridging pins 2 and 3, the relay is only active for 1 second on authorized tag scan. It is possible to reset the timer and keep the relay engaged indefinitely by continuing to hold an authorized tag in place so it is consistently re-scanned.
It also lists the wires on the instruction paper for NC wiring. So if you miss it in the video, its a nice little reference. Good luck with your project. I feel the same as you concidering my past jobs and new hobbies I really should know more about electronics than I do. But hey we all need to start somewhere right?
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So weird, I literally posted about an extremely similar situation yesterday, whats the odds.
Have you tested yours with a meter as @devilclarke suggested yet?
If you answer in your thread, we can further help you there ( If you need it )
Not yet, the meter I had was hosed. Going to try to grab one this weekend, I will pick back up on it Monday. Just thought it was crazy that we both have very similar hardware, hopefully one of our threads will help each other!
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