Build your own 8 DI Optically Isolated Arduino Shield – Part 3

Welcome to the final instalment of my 8 DI Optically Isolated Arduino Shield. Today I will show you some of the assembly pictures, as well as look at the coding to use this shield. I will also provide you with a link to the manufacturing files, in case you want to make your own.

These PBC’s were manufactured at PCBWAY.

You can order your own version of this board for just $5 USD if you click here

PCBWay makes it quite easy to order prototypes for your PCB’s… Just upload the Gerber files on their website, select your desired options for the PCB and order. The turn-around time is great. I received these boards, ordered together with a stencil for SMD assembly, in exactly 5 days, shipping from China to Thailand 🙂 That is super fast, as it arrived 4 days faster than the components that were ordered locally from Bangkok! Be sure to consider using their services next time you need a PBC made…

Top and bottom layout of completed Shield
Bottom of Shield
Top Layout

Some notes on assembly: The reset switch will seem misplaced, and indeed, it is 🙂 The reason for this is that I could not get any 4 pin tactile switches 🙁 So I had to either leave it unpopulated or use a two-pin tactile switch. As I will be using these shields myself, I decided that although it doesn’t look perfect, the two pin switch will still provide me with the functionality that I want.

On the bottom of the board, you can still see some blobs of flux, as the pictures were taken right after assembly, and have not been cleaned up yet. Some solder joints have also not been cleaned up yet.

The top of the unpopulated PCB
The bottom of the PCB

Testing and Coding

The testing of the board is quite straightforward. I first checked all the power rails with a multimeter to make sure there are no open circuits of shorts. Then I checked connections to all the chips and other components, yes, it takes a while to do that, but rather safe than sorry. After assembly, I repeated this process, making sure that all the components receive the correct power level, and that all switches ( like for addressing and the reset button ) actually do what I intended them to do. The next tests were the individual inputs with the optocouplers. This is done by connecting an input source (between 5.5v and 32v) to each individual input and then physically testing on the pins of the optocoupler in question, for the correct voltage input.

The shield is then powered from 5v and the input test is repeated while checking with a multimeter that the input signal does indeed get transferred by the optocoupler to the PCF8574 chip. I found that with the particular batch of PCF8574 chips that I got, that the IC would only respond reliably with a voltage between 5.5v and 32v. The original design was for 3.0v to 32v. I found that the Optocoupler EL357N seems to be unable to switch itself on at the low current allowed through the resistor divider at the input. This can be fixed by lowering the value of R1, R5, R9, R13, R17, R21, R25, R27 from 4k7 to whatever value you need. Note that that will reduce the top-level input voltage that you can safely use. For my application, however, 5.5v to 24v will be perfect, so I will leave it as is.

The shield is now connected to an Arduino with DuPont Wires, to test the I2C addressing of the PCF8574. The chip address is changed with the 3-way dip switch at SW1. All eight addresses are available. It should be noted that I have used a pull-up configuration on the address lines. That will reverse your logic.. Switching the dip switch on will pull the pin to GND, not to VCC as you would normally expect. Thus as an example, all switches off will give an address 0f 0x3f, while all on will give 0x38.

Coding

You can use the standard Arduino IDE with the Wire.h library to code the shield, or you can use one of the many PCF8574 libraries that are available. I coded my tests with the Embeetle IDE, as it gives me much better control over my code. I will show you a short, interrupt enabled sketch, in Arduino C++ below

#include <Wire.h>

byte _portStatus = 0b00000000;
boolean _readI2C = false;

void MyISR() { // Interrupt service routine
  //Serial.println("Interrupt Occured on Pin2");
  if (_readI2C != true) {
    _readI2C = true;  
  }
}

void setup() {
  // put your setup code here, to run once:
  pinMode(2,INPUT_PULLUP);
  attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(2),MyISR,FALLING);
  Serial.begin(115200);
  Wire.begin();
  Wire.beginTransmission(0x20);
  Wire.write(0xFF); // set all pins to 1, needed to make them inputs
  Wire.endTransmission();
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:
  
  byte _data;
  if (_readI2C == true) {
    _readI2C = false;
    Wire.requestFrom(0x20,1);
    if (Wire.available()) {
      _data = Wire.read();
    }
  }
  if (_portStatus != _data) {
    Serial.print("Port Data Changed : 0xb");
    Serial.print(_portStatus,BIN);
    Serial.print(" changed to : 0xb");
    Serial.println(_data,BIN);
    _portStatus = _data;
    delay(50);
  } else {
    _portStatus = _portStatus;
  }
  
}

Conclusion

This turned out to be a very interesting and fun project to do. From designing the circuit to getting it manufactured and hand assembling it myself was a very satisfying experience. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Wendy Wu, from PCBWay‘s Marketing department, for her assistance with the manufacturing of the board. The speed and efficiency with which she handled this project were fantastic.

Build your own 8 DI Optically Isolated Arduino Shield – Part 2

In part 1 of this article, I introduced my new I2C 8DI Optically Isolated Arduino Shield. Today, I will show you how the full design, as well as the circuit diagram.

This shield was designed to allow an input of between 3.0v and 32.0v to be applied to the various inputs. This will be completely galvanic isolated from the rest of the circuitry on the shield, and thus also from your Arduino, or other micro-controller if you choose to use another one 🙂 Yes, This is possible, as long as you power the shield with 3.0v to 5.0v. You will also have to connect your I2C bus to the SCL and SDA Lines marked on the shield.

Please note that, if you decide to do that, the other Arduino specific pins, as broken out on the shield headers, will have no connections to anything else. :), an obvious fact, but it should be stated, it seems 🙂

The Circuit Diagram

Circuit Diagram, Page 1 of 2

As you can see on page 1, each optically isolated input has a voltage divider resistor network in front of the Opto Coupler. This resistor network also limits the current that can be used by the infrared LED inside of the EL357N chip to 5mA at 32v DC. ( The chip can accept up to 50mA, but it should not be driven so hard 🙂 ) A diode provides reverse-polarity protection to each input as well.

Another voltage divider on the output side limits the current to the PCF8574 Chip. This can also only source or sink 25mA per IO.

Note that there is NO common ground between the input and output sides of this circuit. That means that you have to provide another ground, usually from your external device… This ensures that galvanic isolation between the two circuits is maintained.

Circuit Diagram, Page 2 of 2

On page 2, we can see the various net connections to the connectors, PCF8574 chip, as well as various jumper headers, to select the interrupt pin [H3] ( For Arduino, D2 or D3, other micro-controllers: you are free to select any GPIO to connect to the D2 or D3 header pin ).


You can also select to enable or disable the pull-up resistors on the I2C bus, by shorting the jumper on [H2].
This is usually only needed on the first shield, or in other words, you need one pair of pullup resistors per i2c bus, not one pair per device!

Device addressing is selected with SW1. 8 addresses are available but switching this switch as per the table on the back of the PCB. It is worth mentioning that depending on the version of the PCF8574 chip that is on the shield, there are 8 addresses available, with 0x20h to 0x27h being common on the PCF8574, and 0x38h to 0x3fh being used on the PCF8574A/T version.

Typical Connection

Typical connection of input. Note that there are no common ground between the two devices

The PCB

The shield is built on a double-sided PCB or 71.12mm x 61.72mm. This is only slightly bigger than the standard Arduino Uno. All resistors, capacitors and LED’s are of 0805 sizes. ( smaller than that is a bit hard on my eyes, although it can be done, just takes longer 🙂 ). A ground plane is provided on both sides of the PCB.

PCB design file

All Arduino pins are broken out on a double row of 2.54mm headers. This allows you to use either the outside row with stack-able male-female headers, like on most shields, or you can use dedicated male and female headers, in a zig-zag pattern to stack the shields.

I have done the same with the ICSP header, as on many other commercially available shields, there is only a single female 3×2 header on the bottom, making it quite annoying to use on another shield.

PCB Topside
PCB Bottom side

Manufacturing

This shield is currently being manufactured by PCBWay.

PCBWay provides a rapid and affordable PCB manufacturing service. They also provide PCB assembly, and even a 3D printing and CNC service. This can really help to bring new electronic prototypes to market quickly, as PCBWay can provide you with a complete turn-key solution to bring your product to market. The process to order a PCB is also completely automated, and you can easily do it online in a few minutes. Just upload your completed Gerber Files onto their system via their web interface, and you will get a quote in seconds. You can then pay and place your order immediately from the same page. They also have various shipping methods available, That really helps, as no one wants to pay for excessively expensive shipping, or be stuck having to use only one company.

The design files for this project will be made available as a project on the PCBWay website soon after the release of part 3, which will cover the assemble, testing and programming of the shield.

Build your own 8 DI Optically Isolated Arduino Shield – Part 1

All of us Makers like to tinker with stuff, and in this process, we may find ourselves thinking about how to connect device A to my Arduino… Device A may operate at a different voltage from the Arduino, and may thus damage it badly….

Many different solutions exist to do this, but, many of them, like relays, can be quite bulky, increasing the overall size of your project, as well as putting bigger demands onto your power supply unit.

Having worked in the Industrial Automation sector for a few years, I remember that we used to have dedicated hardware to protect our sensitive controllers from the harsh outside signals that we needed to monitor. These devices were called isolators, and today I will show you how to construct your own version of this essential device.

But some theory is needed first…

What does it mean to isolate a signal? In the electronics world, you might have seen that you usually have to use a common ground between all your devices to make them work together properly. While this is definitely true, let us look at another example…

Let us say you have some device, that will send you a voltage signal when it switches on, and another voltage signal when it is switched off. This device runs on 24 volts, so some of the more informed of us will immediately say you need a level converter, meaning a device that changes the 24v signal into a 5v signal… Others will try to use a relay to convert the signal ( A relay is also a type of isolation device ). A much more elegant way of doing this will be by using an Optic Isolator chip.

A simple Optic Isolator Chip

This chip provides complete isolation between your device and the Arduino or other microprocessor. It does that by using infrared light to transmit the signal. Light, as we all know, does not conduct electricity 🙂

Whereas a relay will only give you a on or an off state, the Opto-coupler or Optic Isolator can also do linear current transfer, meaning that the more IR light it transmits, the more current the photo-transistor will allow to pass as well.

A good tutorial on Opto-Couplers can be found here

Opto Isolator Circuit

In my circuit, I made use of the following circuit…

Two Optic Isolator Level converter Circuits

As we can see in the two circuits above, there is no common ground between the input and output sides of the circuit. This is ideal, as noise and other undesirable signals will not be transferred from one circuit to the other. It also allows you to use a very high input voltage, at a frequency of up to 2kHz.

I have also decided to combine this with the PCF8574 I2C Port Extender. That way, I can cascade up to 64 inputs on the I2C bus. In a later version, I will also do an Opto-Isolated Output module.

The Shield is only slightly bigger than the standard Arduino Uno, and all Arduino pins are broken out on headers.
It is important to remember that A4 and A5 should not be used for any other purpose (They provide access to the I2C bus). Likewise, the interrupt pin of the PCF8574 can be connected to either D2 or D3 with a jumper, or left disconnected by completely removing the jumper. Device addressing can be set with the 3-way DIP switch on the board.

8 DI Optically Isolated I2C Arduino Shield

This device is currently being manufactured. In Part 2 of this article, I will show you the completed PCB, as well as give you access to the Gerber design files if you want to manufacture your own. I will also make a limited amount of these boards available for sale from my website ( this site ) as well as from https://www.facebook.com/makeriot2020