This is page 4 of 10 of a how-to on how to build an outlet/relay module. The main project page is here.
We need a power cord that has a standard wall plug on one end and plain wires on the other. If the cord you are using has some kind of jack on the one end, cut it off so that you have just wires.
Run the power cord into the electrical box. Since my box didn't have any kind of strain relief for the power cord, I opened up 2 holes on the same side of the box, ran the cord in one hole, out the other, and back in the original hole again. Make sure you have about 1 foot of slack inside the box so that you have cord to work with.
Use a utility knife to remove any jacket around the wires so that you can separate and strip them. If one of the blades on the plug end of the cord is wider than the other, identify the other end of the wire connected to the wider blade. If both blades are the same width, just pick one of the wires. Then, in either case, cut off about 5 inches of that wire. So, in my case, the light blue wire is associated with the wider blade, the brown wire is associated with the narrower blade, and the green and yellow wire is the ground wire. I don't know how standard these power cords are, so yours are likely to be different.
Strip the insulation off of both ends of the 5-inch wire. One end of that wire will eventually be going around a screw on the outlet, so strip off maybe half an inch on one side. The other side will be soldered to one of the pins on the relay, so you can strip off less on the other side. Also, strip off a half inch or so of the shorter wire of the power cord, as that will be going around the other screw on the outlet, while the longer wire will be soldered to another pin on the relay, so you can strip less off of that.
Click here for an 11 minute video that demonstrates steps 1 through 4. It is about 28MB.
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Page last modified 05/18/2011