Forum Electric: Electrical forum, Electrical engineering, electrician, power plant, energetics,wires

mitch.o · Joined: 05 May 2008 Posts: 1

Hi,

My name is Mitch and I'm working on what is essentially my senior project for my degree in Product Design. I have some basic EE experience, but certainly not much, and I could really use some advice for my project. I would imagine this is a relatively simple question, though it may be rather lengthy. I would really appreciate some help so please bear with me.

I don't need to get into all of the details, but I am redesigning a power strip that will have a desktop portion of the product connected to the traditional power strip itself. The ultimate goal is to be able to switch on and off 2 of the 6 outlets on the power strip via the part of the product that will sit on the desk.

Instead of running the wall current up to the desk, I would like to use a relay in the power strip and run DC power up to the desk where it can be controlled by microswitches. Unfortunately, this is where I hit a wall. I don't quite know how to source the specific relay I need. I know I need 2 DC inputs controlling 2 AC outputs, it should be normally open, it should require as little energy as possible on the DC side, and the relay itself needs to be as small as possible. I've looked on digikey and jameco, but there are so many types I don't really know where to begin. Additionally, I have no idea what to use for the power supply for the DC side of the circuit. I would also like to add a small LED next to each microswitch, and I'm not sure how that would change things.

Hopefully I've explained this clearly enough, but please let me know if you have any questions. Again, I would absolutely appreciate some quick help.

Thank you so much!

Mitch