Wednesday, 4 March 2015

How do I drive a TRIAC from a microcontroller (for low voltages)?


As a followup to this question, I would like to figure out how exactly one might go about driving a TRIAC from a microcontroller (for low-voltage applications, such as 24VAC). Imagine a scenario where I've got a low-voltage AC source running a simple switch-mode power supply that supplies my microcontroller. Is it as simple as hooking a GPIO pin to the TRIAC gate and driving the GPIO high (3.3V in this particular case)? Assume I'm using a simple, cheap, and common (apparently) MAC97 TRIAC. Do I need a resistor on the GPIO pin? Does the TRIAC gate conduct current, or is it like a MOSFET gate? If it conducts current, where does it conduct to (the only other two connections are to the AC line)?


Note that I'm not working with mains voltage here; this is for driving low-voltage AC solenoids. I understand that when working with mains voltage that extreme caution is advised and experimentation can be deadly.




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