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I'm exploring various ways to detect higher voltage using the Pi and have come up with a circuit where the 5v would energize the coil of a relay which would switch 3.3v from the Pi's internal 3.3v supply pin to a GPIO pin.

The 5v will be from a standard wall adapter rated for 1amp and will only be on for brief periods 20-30m weekly.

Is this a viable circuit?

I'm mainly concerned about the load on the GPIO pin - do I need a resistor to limit the current from the 3.3v supply?

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

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2 Answers 2

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Why not just connect Pi ground to one relay contact and a GPIO set as an input to the other. Then set the internal pull-up GPIO resistor. The GPIO would then read high when the relay is open and low when the relay is closed.

You need no other circuit components.

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  • On the Pi side, the simple connection should be just fine... However, there needs to be a protection diode in parallel with the relay coil on the input side.
    – RubberStamp
    Dec 3, 2017 at 22:54
  • @RubberStamp Is there anything to protect on the relay coil side? It's switched by the wall wart which I didn't think would be affected by back EMF from the coil.
    – joan
    Dec 3, 2017 at 23:04
  • Without looking at the schematic of the power supply, there's no way to know if the diode is needed or not. If it's unknown, the diode should be included.
    – RubberStamp
    Dec 3, 2017 at 23:32
  • I was definitely overthinking this problem. Thank you for the simple and elegant solution. One thing I found was that the internal pull-up was being a bit unreliable so I used an external one.
    – nageeb
    Dec 5, 2017 at 20:56
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I have about the same question. I have a 220V relay to be connected to a raspberry pi input via the contacts. One of the contacts is already connected to a 5V supply. Do I need a resistor to connect to a GPIO input?

Thanks

FCoo

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  • The answer section is for answers. This should be a question unto itself.
    – james6125
    Sep 18 at 0:52

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