ANY-maze Help > I/O devices supported by ANY-maze > The ANY-maze interface device family > The ANY-maze Relay interface > Connecting an ANY-maze Relay interface to your apparatus

Connecting an ANY-maze Relay interface to your apparatus

Before connecting your equipment to an ANY-maze Relay interface output port, please check the current and voltage are within the port's limits.

Introduction

The ANY-maze Relay interface acts like a simple on/off switch, so connections to it are made in the same way as you'd connect a switch.

Connecting to a light or motor

Figure 1 shows how a light would be connected. Circuits similar to this can be used to turn all sorts of things on and off. For example, the light could be replaced with a motor that opens and closes a door.

Figure 1. Each output of the ANY-maze Relay interface acts like a simple on/off switch. Here closing the switch will cause the light to turn on.

Connecting to a speaker

Another way to use a Relay output would be to switch white noise on and off, as in figure 2, below. In fact, this circuit could be used with any sound generator, not just white noise.

Figure 2. Here closing the switch will cause white noise to be played by the speaker.

Connecting to a shocker

Many shockers include a 'remote control' input (although the name may be different) which simply consists of two terminals - when the terminals are connected together, a shock will be applied. These inputs are intended to have a simple on/off switch connected to them (usually on a long cable - hence the name 'remote control'), but as the ANY-maze Relay interface acts like a simple on/off switch, you can connect to it instead and then ANY-maze can control the shocker - see figure 3.

Some shockers are designed to be controlled via a TTL input. If your shocker is of this type then you can control it using the ANY-maze Digital interface.

Figure 3. Controlling shockers which have a 'remote control' input is very straightforward.

Connecting to a pellet dispenser

One of the most useful roles for the ANY-maze Relay interface is to control pellet dispensers. Many pellet dispensers have a 'control' input which, when connected to the dispenser's power input (or sometimes ground), cause the device to switch on and dispense a pellet.

Figure 4. Controlling a pellet dispenser through an ANY-maze Relay interface. Note that not all pellet dispensers connect in this way - you should check how your device works before connecting it.

There are more details about connecting to pellet dispensers in the next section.

Note that if you are using an ANY-maze Relay interface to control a pellet dispenser, you should specify in the ANY-maze Relay interface configuration window that the port is to be a pellet dispenser. This will allow you to set up a specific pellet dispenser port in your protocol, which will make it much easier to control with a procedure during a test.

The output connector

There are six 4-way output connectors on the ANY-maze Relay interface (labelled 1-6). These use screw terminal blocks which unplug from the device.

The terminal block pin-out is (counting from left to right, looking into the front of the block):

So pins 2 and 3 are the two sides of the switch. It doesn't make any difference which way round you connect things to them.

The PWR input and the Power and Ground outputs

The front of the interface includes a 2-way screw terminal block connector labelled PWR. This is designed to be a power input and whatever you connect to it comes out of the Power (Pin 1) and Ground (Pin 4) pins of all six of the 4-way output connectors. The pin-out of the PWR connector is (counting from left to right, looking into the front of the block):

These power connections are available to be used in whatever way you wish. In many cases you probably won't use them at all - but consider, for example, how you could use the PWR input to connect 4 cue lights to the interface - as shown in figure 5, below:

Figure 5. Using the PWR input to distribute power to the output connectors makes the wiring to connect 4 cue lights much simpler.

The PWR input is especially useful for connecting pellet dispensers. Usually these have three inputs: Power, Ground and Control. By connecting a pellet dispenser power supply to the PWR input, it then becomes very simple to connect each dispenser to an ANY-maze Relay interface, as shown in figure 6.

Figure 6. Connecting pellet dispensers to the ANY-maze Relay interface is simplified by using the PWR input to distribute power. Here two pellet dispensers have been connected, but you could connect up to six. Note that not all pellet dispensers connect in this way - you should check how your device works before connecting it.

When using the PWR input to distribute power to multiple devices, you should check that the power supply you're using can supply enough current. For example, a pellet dispenser might require 250mA of power (at, say, 28V), so 6 of them would require 1.5A. The power supply should be able to provide this much current.

If you're uncertain about how to connect your device, just contact ANY-maze Support who'll be happy to help.

Testing

Testing ports that have been configured as Pellet dispensers

After you have connected your pellet dispenser, you will of course want to test it. This is easily done using the I/O page.

Figure 7. Testing the ANY-maze Relay interface on the I/O page. Here the pellet dispenser connected to port 1 has been activated and is 'busy' dispensing the pellet.     

If you find that a pellet does not dispense when you activate the port, then:

If all else fails, then contact ANY-maze Support who'll be happy to help.

Testing ports that are configured as output switches

Figure 8. Testing the ANY-maze Relay interface on the I/O page. Here port 1 has been turned on.

When testing a shocker take care, as turning the output on will cause a continuous shock to be delivered.

When testing a pellet dispenser, turning the output on will cause the device to continuously dispense, so you will typically want to turn it on and then immediately off, as this should dispense just one (or perhaps two) pellets. (Note that when using the pellet dispenser in tests, you can set the output to switch on for a specific short period, for example 300ms, such that just one pellet is dispensed.)

If when you turn the output on, your equipment doesn't switch on, then check the following:

If you can't work out what the problem is, don't panic - just contact ANY-maze Support who will be happy to help.

See also:

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ANY-maze help topic T1072