Arduino Due connect to 12v relay without board

[kevin0616]

Hi, Im new to all these stuff and I bought the wrong relay that I need. I need a relay to switch whether on or off the light bulb which as I understand that it won't works by direct connect from Arduino. What I have is 12VDC relay and a Arduino Due and I wanted to control a light bulb which stated 12V 3A. I have 16 light bulbs that need to control. For your information Im doing a game named whack-a-mole and reason why I need to use the 12V light bulb is because it comes together with the push button I bought. So is there any easy way to solve my problem? Im still new to all these stuff.

[bengchet]

Hi,

You can break your problem into several smaller ones and solve it one by one.

First, you can try control relay first by using Arduino. This link might interest you. It has example circuit for controlling 12V relay. I suggest you should be also familar with how relay works. There are plenty of websites or videos online which you can search for, keyword 'how relay works'.

After that you can try integrate 12V light bulb to the relay system. If you know how relay works, definitely you will know how to light up the bulb using that.

Have fun exploring.

[kevin0616]

Thanks for your reply. Actually I do search about how they connecr Arduino to 12V relay, but mostly they connect to a relay with base. Or else the circuit is quite complicated. I know that it needs 12V signal to power up the relay. And Arduino Due only have 3.3V signal, so what I'm looking for is IC like 74HC4050 which can convert 3.3V signal to 5V. Is there any IC can convert 3.3V to 12V right away, so that the circuit won't be that complicated?

[bengchet]

Hi,

You can refer to this link. This link provides schematics that suits your application. I can also suggest chip ULN2803A which works similar to the chip ULN2003A in the schematics. Datasheet about ULN2803A has some info that you need, please have a look.