So I have this relay board that I got on eBay. It's supposed to work in linux via the ftdi_sio driver. It is able to activate a relay, but not deactivate a relay. I use this command:

echo $'\xff\x01\x01' > /dev/ttyUSB0

to activate and I'm supposed to use:

echo $'\xff\x01\x00' > /dev/ttyUSB0

to deactivate. If I send this to a file instead of /dev/ttyUSB0, I get nothing for the x00. I don't know if thats the way it's supposed to be, or what. I think the problem is that the command never passes a third value (x00) and so the relay ignores it. Is there a way to force a "null" value instead of nothing? Am I completely off?

Thanks,

Scott

Nevermind, I added the "-e" option to echo (interpretation of backslash chars) and it works now.

Hi, I am having the same problem, but the -e didn't fix it.

Do you have to power the relay board seperately?

Yes, my relay board takes 12v of power. Just the USB power isn't enough to hold all 8 of the active relays on.

--scott