CONTROLLING AC APPLIANCE WITH COMPUTER

CONTROLLING AC APPLIANCE WITH COMPUTER

By: Utkarsh

Hello everyone, today I will share my experience of controlling AC appliance with the computers. During our last hobby club we, the children of IT club, had switched on and off the electric AC bulb (220V) with the help of our computers by accessing the local IP address of raspberry pi, which is a small single-board computer.

It was my first experience of controlling an AC appliance with the help of a Local Area Network. We can control even from a long distance with the help of internet as the internet is the net of connections, interlinked to each and every computer in the world for sharing information and other resources.

Raspberry Pi is a small computer which has 40 GPIO(s) (General Purpose Input Output) pins. Each pin is programmable and the programme is stored in the micro SD card in it. It uses python language for controlling AC appliance as python is the language which helps computers to control hardware with the help of the software.

We have programmed in such a way that when we sends 0 (input command)from our computer to raspberry pi (processing) where it is processed and then the solid state relay turn on the AC light bulb (220V) (output). And, when we send 1 to raspberry, the relay switches off the bulb. A relay is a very small device which acts like a switch for AC connections and can be used to complete or break the circuit, which in result helps us to control the AC appliances. It works on the principle of electromagnetism.

It was a very good experience for me and I think this technology should be used in home automation as well as in our school with adding photo –resistors which will help us to reduce the electric bill as well as switching on and off the electric appliances at the right time.

Thank you. 
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