Step 1 : the plan


While working on my LedTriks controller I came to belive that the same driver could replace the two different chips on the 595 boards so in the intrest of creating a cheaper, easier and smaller replacement for the 595 for those without a lot of extra cash I design the "Grinch" after my favorite christmas show. Its cheap and small but its not high tech it doesn't dim and it uses no pic's. The attached picture shows the current design of the controller. the parts should cost about $6 not including the RJ45 connectors.

Step 2 : The status

Currently I have no finished units in pcb format. I have been too busy working on the LedTriks to get one made. I have tested the design on a proto board on my bench with Seans coop SSR's and it worked perfect. Everything is wired the same the only change from the 595 design is the rj45 connectors are not laid out in the same pattern. The channels are in different connectors. Look at the lettering on the Rj45 jacks for the layout. Feel free to build tweak what ever on this design. It was done in two days so it can be improved I'm sure.

Step 3 : The components

The Capacitors in the front of each chips is a .1uf 50 volt decoupling cap same as on the 595. mouser part number 581-SA105E104Z. The chips are the big news they are PN# MBI5027GN I purchased mine from

http://www.kingelectronics.com/index.asp?sid=AB67164DE14B45FCA2F29BD9F7F23715&action=product&id=166

they go for $1.06 the data sheet for them is here

http://www.kingelectronics.com/images/products/MBI5027Datasheet-VA.02-English.pdf

Make sure you get the GN's as they come in other layouts.

Step 4 : Finish

I use Mouser PN # 571-5202514 for my rj45 jacks the same as a 595. I have a bunch of finshed 595 boards ready for christmas so I really did not design this for me. I posted the express pcb file of the board at http://putstuff.putfile.com/51978/1771613
Feel free to tweak it all you want I designed Grinch with cheap easy and small in mind and I'm sure it can be improved. I hope this is useful to someone and let me know if you build them and how they worked out for you.
It can daisy chain just as the 595 and it uses the 595 plugins in vixen so other than a design of the board change nothing else changes.
I make no claim that the design is safe or makes sense or that it will work for anything (legal bull).

Step 5 : Additional Info

I was asked to explain the operation some so I added this.

The reason we can get away with one chip is because of two factors. the 595 chips output power when they go high (vixen says turn the light on) This is the opposite of what the ssr design we use needs to turn on it needs to be sinked (hooked to Ground) so we need a way to invert this. You could redesign the ssrs to work either way but I needed this design to work with ssr's we have. The 2803 chips does this for us. the other reason is if the 595 did put the correct signal out it could not handle the current of running all the ssrs at one time. so the 2803 is a power chip and provides us with enough current to do the job.

The 5027 on the other hand does sink the outputs when the port is set high. And it has transistors built into it to provide far more than we need to drive the ssr's. This combines both chips into one and makes it the ultimate 595 replacement. In fact its 16 bit so it replaces 2 595's. Your ssr's can be just as far away. There is nothing giving up in the design other than led's, cost, size. The leds could be added but the cost would increase. In fact a clever person could add the Led's with out the need for the resistor array as the 5027 can provide constant current by setting one resistor between all the R-EXT pins and ground. I have it directly grounded to have the circuit provide how ever much current the ssr needs (up to the chips max of 90ma) so other designed ssr's with less sensitive triacs will still work. But if you used leds that match up well you could set the current add the led with no load resistor and let the chip do the work. This was outside the scope of the project as I intended it to be as cheap as possible. It was my hope that this controller could be built for under $.25 a channel or 64 channels for $15. I believe it is possible with a coop order. With the coop that just ran getting the ssr's to around $1.80 a channel we would be close to offering a DIY'er a $2.00 a channel setup without enclosures. The Current 595 design runs close to $3.00 a channel.