Controlling a heater

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expertengr

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In order to control a AC electrical heater 230 Watt, which switch is better Triac or Relay ? which can be driven by microcontroller.
 

Hi,

230V is dangerous voltage.
A relay is an isolating device, so the dangerous voltage is not at your microcontroller.
A triac is not isolating, therefore usually the dangerous voltage is at your microcontroller.
Especially when you doing in system programming, then your programmer and maybe your computer is also connected to dangerous voltage.

For isolation you may use dedicated isolating triac drivers like MOCxxx.

Klaus
 



Select appropriate Triac based on the heater current or power
 

The best option would be an SS-Relay which combines both the Opto-Isolator and the Triac.
SS-Relay is also available in a wide ampere rating
***Another advantage of it over normal relay is that it doesn't have any wearable mechanical parts
 

Hi,
which switch is better Triac or Relay
Click to expand...
This question makes no sense as long as you don´t define "better" regarding "what"...

it can be:
* cost
* size
* color
* EMC
* EMI
* effort
* isolation
* drive power
* conduction loss
* speed
...and many others

Klaus
 

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