SSR.... all 16 will not trip at the same time.

[Deuce Wills]

Arduino Mega 2560
2 - SainSmart SSR boards
Vixen 3

I’m new to Xmas light sequencing. This is my first time. I have a couple of songs sequenced in vixen. Everything is great except when I have all 16 relays(lights) on at the same. No Go. None of them come on. Any part of my vixen sequence that turns on more than 10 relays results in no relays turning on. However, the setup display of my house in vixen shows all lights on. It doesn’t matter which song either.

I assumed it was a current problem so I added another 5 volt power supply so each SainSmart board has it’s on separate 5 volt supply...no go.

Today, I swapped in a spare computer power supply to provide 5 volts to the relay boards....still no go.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks
Deuce

[MartinMueller2003]

Possibility #1:
You may have added the power the relays needed, however you may be overloading the power output on the arduino. Each output must provide enough current to latch the relay, If the total of all of the relays exceeds the aggregate current capacity of the Arduino then the relays will not work.

Possibility #2:
Your sketch is not set up properly

[Msp1996]

Make sure all of your grounds from the power supply, arduino,and relay boards are connected

[Deuce Wills]

Make sure all of your grounds from the power supply, arduino,and relay boards are connected

Thanks. I will ground both boards and the Arduino. As for the Arduino not being able to handle the current draw for the relays....I only have 16 relays for a 2560 board which should support 48 relays.

[Deuce Wills]

I’m thinking my Arduino is the problem. If I turn off 5 relays on either relay board at one time, the remaining 11 relays will turn on, so that rules out a relay board problem.

[MartinMueller2003]

So it looks like the Arduino can source 20ma and the SSR needs 20ma to trigger. If the supply driving the arduino starts to dip, then you will not be able to source that 20ma. What is the output voltage on the I/O pins as you turn on more outputs. If the supply drops below 7v the Arduino voltage regulators will fail to keep the voltage at 5V (the regulator needs +2v to be able to provide a stable 5v output voltage).

[kev]

Which model Sainsmart SSR boards are you using?
My recollection of the MEGA is that each quadrant of outputs can not exceed 200 or so Millie amps. Depending on the current requirement of each channel, you may be exceeding the MEGA capabilities.