A simple guide to controlling 12 volt LED strips from your Arduino using an N Channel Mosfet.
In my example I’m using PWM to fade the 12v LED strip, but you could just as easily turn the LED strip on and off instead of fading it. Also it doesn’t have to be an LED strip and it doesn’t have to be 12v!
If you’re going to drive a motor or a relay (or any inductive load) using this setup, you should add a diode across the positive and negative input of the motor/relay to avoid any back voltage.
I’ve over simplified things in terms of my description and the circuit, but it should be enough to get you up and running and to give you a basic understanding of how an N-Channel Mosfet works.
Pretty much any N Channel Mosfet will be fine, but ideally you want to go for an L series, because the gate can be reliably driven at lower voltages, such as the 5 volt from the Arduino.
If you’re curious, a MOSFET is a metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor. The benefit of a MOSFET over the traditional relay is that it can turn on and off extremely quickly, meaning it’s suitable for PWM, compared to the old coil relay which can’t turn on and off so quickly. Of course a modern solid state relay can compare against a mosfet or transistor.
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Post time: Jul-16-2017