DC SSR only working at half

Anybody noticed that his mosfet has a zener internal as opposed to the norm of diode based, ! That is the extent of my observation
 
I am by no means an expert but are the mosfets source and drain backwards? Also, I can't tell where the 10k resistors are going. I think they should be going between the gate and 0v.

I'm looking at the DCSSR schematic as a reference.

Somebody with more experience please chime in on this.

edit: I looked again and it does look like the 10k resistors are going between the gate and 0v.
 
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dirknerkle said:
The Ren-C only works with a Grinch or 595 board and does not have any capability for DC or AC. The Ren-C is a translator, of sorts, that translates a serial signal into a format that the Grinch/595 can understand, which normally are connected to the parallel port.
Click to expand...

Hang on.. something seems amiss with my understanding here.

Grinch - on/off only.. it has no idea about dimming because it has no ZC capability.
- interfaced via "clocked" in data to a latch, which controls each port.
REN-C - serial interface (does serial to clocked/latch data conversion)
- provides "DIMMING" via ZC signal passed in to it.

So if we have a version of the RENARD that is custom compiled for PWM output (when talking to DCSSRs), shouldn't such a firmware exist for the REN-C?

I'm open to be educated here. But I have to wonder, if the lack of a ZC signal couldn't result in the output being "off" for 1/2 of the duty cycle.
Manifesting as an appearance of 1/2 the voltage.

Hey.. it's just a theory.

So this REN-C... does it have a ZC signal coming into it?
 
LabRat said:
Hang on.. something seems amiss with my understanding here.

Grinch - on/off only.. it has no idea about dimming because it has no ZC capability.
- interfaced via "clocked" in data to a latch, which controls each port.
REN-C - serial interface (does serial to clocked/latch data conversion)
- provides "DIMMING" via ZC signal passed in to it.

So if we have a version of the RENARD that is custom compiled for PWM output (when talking to DCSSRs), shouldn't such a firmware exist for the REN-C?

I'm open to be educated here. But I have to wonder, if the lack of a ZC signal couldn't result in the output being "off" for 1/2 of the duty cycle.
Manifesting as an appearance of 1/2 the voltage.

Hey.. it's just a theory.

So this REN-C... does it have a ZC signal coming into it?
Click to expand...

He does say that it works for AC, I presume he means that his 240v ssr,s work with a flicker. He is most likely asleep now so will have to wait.
 
I can control 240v ac lights and dim them which is great there is just a small flicker though. Can someone tell me what output I should be getting from the grinch as I'm getting about 2.3v at full power and I thought it would of been 5v, but I'm not sure.

Thanks for all your help :)
 
I don't use a GRINCH thus I'm very much thinking of this theoretically. But it would seem that you measurement at the GRINCH is about 1/2 expected, so again I'm theorizing that your signal is actually "ON" for only 1/2 of the time. This would appear to your standard voltmeter as about 1/2 the voltage.

What are you using for your Zero Cross detection circuit? I can see in the wiki that the REN-C relies on having this signal passed to it (often from a REN-T).

Any chance you would have access to a scope, or a logic probe? If you have a PicKit2 it can be made to operate as a basic logic analyzer, and you could easily measure/watch the signal on the Grinch itself to see if it is on 100%, or if it is actually cycling on/off with a 50% duty cycle.

ps. I'm off on Holidays.. so may not be able to see the outcome of this. I *do* hope you manage to track this down soon. Best of luck... cheers.
 
Im using a H11A1 and a 24v ac power source with the 3.3K ohm resistor on both inputs. I sadly don't have a scope or anything else like that, im 16 and new to all of this so I don't have any major equipment yet. I took a reading from all the test points on the ren-c and got these results:
Test Point 1: 4.41v
Test Point 2: 0.02v
Test Point 3: 0.02v
Test Point 4: 3.82v
Test Point 5: 0.02v

Ive got no idea what is happening, I can only think its a problem with the ren-c, but it works with AC so im not sure

Thanks everyone that has helped me with this already, I hope you guys can come up with a fix as I've got no idea what im doing
 
Just took a reading of my 240v ac lights and Im only getting about 127v on that, so this seems to be a bigger problem than first though and I took a reading for a set of 24v ac Christmas lights and I got a 15.1v output. So its not my SSRs i dont think but either the grinch or ren-c output, as im only getting about 2.3v input to the SSR from the grinch.

Does anyone have any ideas now that its a problem over all of my SSRs? or has this made it worse?
 
Well spotted sir, and as far as the flickering I used screened cable from my xc to the Ren,s, ( the screen being grounded ) all I am left with now is a very minor flick on the last channel of each of the four homemade Olsons. Can live with that.
 
Ive ordered the new part and it should be here on Tuesday I'm hoping, I will let you guys knows the results :)

thanks for all your help :)
 
Oh man.. I was going to post this as an option (as I had made the same mistake) but was waiting to hear about your ZC solution. This is good news as it's such an easy fix.
 
Woooo! new part came today :) I put it and it works i have the biggest smile ever :p thanks so much everyone, im so pleased :) woo :)
 
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