On Tue, 30 Jun 1998, Brian Gracia wrote:

> Hello from New Orleans,
>
> I have an application where I have to controll a sprinkler valve rated at
> 18V ac with a max holding currrent of 450ma.  I am using a pic 16F84.  I
> thought about a relay.  I got one from the "Rat Shack" rated for 5v control
> and contact rating of 125V ac @ 1 amp.
>
> Can anyone help me with reccomendations?
>
> Brian

Wouldn't a small triac and a pulse transformer driven directly by the PIC
do your job ? You don't really need zero crossing detection so pulsing the
PIC output at 1 kHz all the time would do it. A timer interrupt could do
that for you.

hope this helps,

        Peter