🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1164@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> kline@tuna.cso.uiuc.edu (Charley Kline) writes:
>... What, just put
>the load in series with the main terminals of the triac and con-
>nect the gate to the TTL signal? Surely not...

A good place to start on this would be to get spec sheets and applications
notes on the 3011 (formally the MOC3011, I think) from Motorola or some
other source of it.  This is really what you want for such a job:  a small
triac with an opto-isolated control input, which can be used to control
bigger triacs.  Good isolation is quite important when you have kilowatts
of AC on one side and TTL on the other side!

You also might want to look at "solid-state relays", available from many
suppliers, which are essentially fancy pre-packaged versions of all that.
These things really can take TTL (or whatever) in one side and control
heavy-duty AC on the other side.  They will, of course, cost more than
buying triacs and building it yourself.  Might be preferable if you are
interested in getting fairly-standard results quickly rather than in
learning or custom effects, though.
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