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New to breadboard, can't seem to figure out how to place relay

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dcwatson84

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I bought the following SPST dual coil latching relay and breadboard...
**broken link removed**
**broken link removed**

I'm trying to lay it out on a breadboard, and Im trying to get the orientation correct to allow me to control the latching relay.

If I lay the relay across the middle ravine horizontally (long-ways), the switched pins seem to be shorted because they are on the same horizontal row.
If I lay it vertically on one size of the board, the controlling pins are all shorted because they are on the same horizontal row.

I assume Im either missing something or bought incompatible components. Hopefully there's a pretty simple answer, any help is appreciated!
 
That won't seem to work. Check out the relay, it has 3 pins on one end that all need to be used. So there is no way to bridge that gap vertically. And if you mean horizontally then see my first post.
 
That relay has metric pin spacing, so won't fit all that well in 0.1 inch breadboard. In particular, the mid pin of the coil set is almost exactly at half pitch.

I would solder a wire onto that pin, plug the relay in with the centre pin in the gap between columns e and f, and then poke the wire into a nearby row.
 
Not with a pin spacing of 3.75 mm. That is 0.147 inches, so 1 1/2 pitches. I don't think that metric breadboards exist.

If you use a G5RL-U1-E, then it will just about fit. The length isn't perfect, at 25 mm, so that is o.4 mm off pitch, but that wouldn't be too bad. That relay is set / reset by powering one coil in opposite directions, rather than powering two separate coils, so the circuit is would have to be arranged differently.
 
Best bet might be to mount the relay dead-bug style, i.e. with its pins in the air, each pin having a soldered wire to connect to the breadboard.
 
You may need a different relay anyway. I assume that the purpose of this relay is to reverse the polarity on a DC motor as mentioned in this thread.

For that you need a relay with DPDT contacts. It can be done with SPST relays, but you will need four of them. And, if one of them gets out of sequence, or you have a make-before-break condition, you'll end up with a dead short across your power supply.

One thing to be aware about with solderless breadboards. They're really designed for low power circuitry. Expecting them to reliably carry more than a couple hundred milliamps is iffy. Planning on a few of amps of motor current is unrealistic.
 
Depending on what you're trying to do, a module like this from ebay may be your best bet. the relays are driven by a transistor on the module, so there's no worry about drive current, and the contacts are brought out to terminal blocks, so there's no worry about the current carrying capacity of the bread board. These modules are far cheaper than the cost of the parts to build one yourself.
SmartSelectImage_2016-07-31-02-20-28.png
SmartSelectImage_2016-07-31-02-20-52.png
 
JonSea;
I definitively think that modules like the ones that you posted are the way to go.

Not only can you get them at a cost below that of individual components, but the a breadboard will not have the current capabilities required to switch a motor reliably.
 
I'll still have to buy other individual components because the system is more complex than that specific relay module.

Another question - why would they sell relays like this if its impossible to get the boards for them?
 
Another question - why would they sell relays like this if its impossible to get the boards for them?
Because the vast majority of circuits are built on custom PCBs. Hobbyists account for a tiny fraction of the market, so it's not worth manufacturers catering for them specially.
 
there are relay sockets you can get too, that extend the legs and add more flexibility with that tolerance.... my personal problems with that setup was that the legs are too short and kept popping out of bread board, which creates a nightmare when troubleshooting controller code
 
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