Kits / Starter Kit: Hardware Hacking / Examples / Control Mains Switches Remotely / Using Ruby

Control Remote Mains Switches using Ruby¶

For this project we are assuming, that you have a Ruby development environment set up and that you have a rudimentary understanding of the Ruby language.

If you are totally new to Ruby itself you should start here. If you are new to the Tinkerforge API, you should start here.

We are also assuming that you have the remote control connected to an Industrial Quad Relay Bricklet as described here.

Goals¶

The goal of this little project is to give an idea how the relays of the Industrial Quad Relay Bricklet have to be switched to turn the mains switches on/off.

The following code uses #set_monoflop to trigger a button press on the remote control. A monoflop will set a new state (relay open or close) and hold it for a given time (1.5s in the example code). After this time the previous state is restored. This approach simulates a button click that takes 1.5s (1500ms).

According to the hardware setup section the inputs of the remote control should be connected as follows:

Signal	Relay
A	0
B	1
ON	2
OFF	3

To trigger the switch "A ON" of the remote control the relays 0 and 2 of the Industrial Quad Relay Bricklet have to be closed. This is represented by the selection mask (1 << 0) | (1 << 2).

So the monoflop function should be called with this selection mask and a time of 1500ms to simulate a button press of "A ON". See the following source code for a minimal example.

Source Code¶

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#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# -*- ruby encoding: utf-8 -*-

require 'tinkerforge/ip_connection'
require 'tinkerforge/bricklet_industrial_quad_relay'

include Tinkerforge

HOST = 'localhost'
PORT = 4223
UID = 'ctG' # Change to your UID
VALUE_A_ON  = (1 << 0) | (1 << 2) # Pin 0 and 2 high
VALUE_A_OFF = (1 << 0) | (1 << 3) # Pin 0 and 3 high
VALUE_B_ON  = (1 << 1) | (1 << 2) # Pin 1 and 2 high
VALUE_B_OFF = (1 << 1) | (1 << 3) # Pin 1 and 3 high

ipcon = IPConnection.new # Create IP connection
iqr = BrickletIndustrialQuadRelay.new UID, ipcon # Create device object

ipcon.connect HOST, PORT # Connect to brickd
# Don't use device before ipcon is connected

iqr.set_monoflop VALUE_A_ON, 15, 1500

ipcon.disconnect