Qwiic Quad Solid State Relay Kit stability Issues

Kits
1

I have the Qwiic Quad Solid State Relay Kit. It works fine for a while, but eventually starts acting up. I can see the relay flash quickly when I toggle it, but the setting doesn’t stick.

Initially, the code turns the relay on for 1 second, then off for one second. At some point, the relay just blips every two seconds.

I have removed everything from the I2C bus and switched over to an external power supply. I get the same results.

The only thing that stops this behavior is to bounce the Qwiic Quad Solid State Relay board. Restarting the program will not fix the issue.

2

Thanks for reaching out to us on this.

It might be helpful to know a bit more about your set-up: are the relays wired for ‘normal on’ or ‘normal off’ operation? Having this backwards might result in what you are experiencing.

Double-check by referring to the hookup guide: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/qw … e-assembly

Hope this helps, and happy sparking!

3

They are SSRs. The negative on the board is connected to the negative on the relay.

It does this without the relays hooked up at all. It does it with relays, without relays, with a load on the relays, with out a load on the relays.

4

It sounds like the item might be failing…was the purchase < ~30 days ago? If so, please head over to https://www.sparkfun.com/returns and we’ll gladly exchange the item!

5

I am having similar issues as stated above. After a random amount of time the #2 relay will be turned on and no commands will work to switch the relay states. The only solution i have found is to power cycle the board. The board then works for a while before the same issue occurs. Any suggestions?

6

I’m also having similar issues where relay #2 will get stuck on after a random interval. It also causes other sensors on the i2c bus to stop responding correctly. A full unplug seems to be the only fix.

I wonder if this is a firmware bug, or perhaps insufficient current or power?

I am observing the issue when connecting to the relay board via Raspberry Pi.

7

It’s likely dead firmware; Head over to www.sparkfun.com/returns and we can get you squared away

8

I have the same issue that relay 2 gets stuck after a while of operation. Also the python example code that you have should really be synced better with qwiic_relay package and also the firmware. Ive checked that the readBlock operation responds strange bytes all the time. When its working “ok” it responds 0 value per asked byte when relay is off and 15 when on. Sometimes it respond 7 and sometimes 255 and these values dont seem to originate from the firmware that is on github.

So my question is that it seems that the atTiny84 on board has some faulty firmware. Can someone tell me instructions and the equipment needed to reprogram the chip? Instructions say that the headers 3x2 are available and they are but how they should be connected and to what to be able to reprogram the tiny?