A microbridge is perfect.

  vegipete said  

How often do opto-couplers let out the magic smoke? I prefer to have mine socketed so they can be replaced. Maybe that's unnecessary.

This was my philosophy since forever but the only failure that I can remember was when someone, somehow managed to apply 110V AC to a 24V DC input.

These carrier boards are inexpensive enough that I'll include spares in a care-package.

I was just populating a breadboard and even though I do this frequently, I still managed to bend a pin, even when using my pin straightening tool.

TBH I'd always try to avoid sockets in industrial stuff. They are always a weak point. If you have to use them then use good ones as the risk of corroded pins is less. Opto-couplers are very rugged.

If you want belt and braces fit a series resistor then a zener before the opto's series resistor. Use it to limit the opto's maximum current to about 10mA at the zener voltage. The zener will also give reverse polarity protection.

Well opened up Sprint Layout yesterday only to find the wheel on my logitech mouse was completely stuffed   and was forced to shut Sprint Layout down. So went to the place I bought it from only to find it was 13 months ago so out of warranty   anyway $14 for a new mouse and now got 2 dongles on the the USB front ports on my desktop. also grabbed a 4 port unpowered USB hub for the project.

Mice seem to have a habit of dying at the least convenient time. :-(  I've now accumulated a standby wireless one and a couple of wired ones that I can use in case of emergencies.

Well I have been letting my shed run 24/7 as the load with my beer fridge and the lights is only a 5 amp draw on the inverter anyway with the last week it has been cloudy as and when I looked on my victron app saw over night lows of 22 volts  

So checked the gravity in my shed battery and yep flat as a tack   so spent the last 2 days with the inverter off charging the battery and with no load on the battery over night it will be interesting to see the low voltage using the app.

Anyway toady spent most of the day working on my CNC where I mounted the DM556's on the sides of the top tray. Now just got to run all the step/direction cables to that breakout board I made then it will be ready to test with that code again.