Opto-Isolator Board for General Purpose

Figure 1 

The optocoupler board project is intended for general purpose applications where the signals are allowed to pass between two circuits without having to connect them electrically.

Some of the advantages that this optoisolator circuit can greatly give are the elimination of noise problems and connecting circuits that possess different voltages. An example is in the RepRap system wherein the noisy motor driving circuits are being isolated from the rest of the electronics. This allows more advanced operation like using interrupt driven rotary encoders and other methods.

The means of communication used by the optoisolator is through light where data is being sent and two circuits are isolated electronically. It has 2 separate Vcc and 2 separate Ground connections. With the use of IDC cables, pin 1 is generally denoted by the red pin. The pins are counted up from the red-marked pin until reaching the other side of the cable.

The chips are being held by the socket with semi-circle lining up with the mark on the silkscreen. The 2 chips are inserted at the top and at the bottom. The resistor wire is folded over close to the body before inserting it to the PCB.

Rest of the story