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| From ‹‹ Stµpid Hax ›› |
You may recognize the 2-outlet box from my "Fonera Automated Reset Technology" post I made previously. Since I am no longer using internet from Comcast, I am not plagued with modem freezes anymore (Hurray!). As a result, this device I built has been sitting around without much of a purpose recently.
The other night I was thinking about what I could use it for, and came up with this idea. I am using a 5 volt power supply to trigger the 5 volt relay inside the outlet box. As you may recall, I spit the two outlets inside the box so one outlet is on the normally open side of the relay, and the other is on the normal closed side. So I plug the 5 volt power supply into the "Surge Protection Only" half of the UPS, and the outlet box into the "Battery powered" half. I plug a lamp into the "Normally Closed" side of the outlet box (which is "open" as long as the 5 volt PSU is powered up). As soon as the power goes out, the 5 volt PSU losses power, flipping the relay back to Normally closed, thus turning on the lamp.
Very simple and dare I say it... useful? (Damn, I failed at creating something useless once again!)
Anyway, it's a great way of giving yourself some emergency work light when everything else in the house is off.
Here's a quick demonstration video:
