Electronics question regarding routing 110VAC to a relay safely

General
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I was thinking that maybe originality may be a bit overrated* and that I should beat the dead horse by using my Spark Core to control a relay that can switch a 110VAC on and off.

The relay I have is rated 120VAC at 3A or 24VDC at 3A.

I have screw-type terminal blocks and I have everything that I could need to control it from the 5v/3.3v side of the house but how do I transport one of the AC wires (not so much the wire but the voltage and current it carries) from the terminal block to the relay? The legs on the relay have got to be 30 gauge wire and I know that won’t work for that kind of current or voltage.

Breadboards aren’t especially made to handle 110VAC and I’m not keen on frying parts or my Spark Core and I don’t fancy spending my Friday night nursing a burn.

What I do have are Adafruit 1/4 sized and 1/2 sized Perma-Proto boards. I could solder some DIP sockets onto the board and use <a href=https://www.radioshack.com/products/solderless-jumper-wire-kit?variant=20332059653>these jumper wires that I have available to me to route the power from a terminal block to the relay that would be sitting in a DIP socket. Is that too risky? What are the alternatives**?

I want to make my own board once I finish my design. Would I need to tweak anything so that I can use surface-mounted traces?



Thanks!

*OP chose to heavily use sarcasm here; note added due to Poe's Law.

**Other than buying a relay shield, obviously–I want to prototype my ideas. That’s what makes it enjoyable.

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From time to time I power 300 neopixels through a breadboard, using prototyping wires, so they can handle some current. That said, why not take a look at how it’s done on the relay shield. It’s open source, so you can still use it for inspiration even without buying :wink:

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@Moors7 I thought about doing just that. It would likely show the components along the path but I’m concerned about wire gauges and such. I know that 110VAC mostly uses 13 gauge wire but could it be done with, say, 18 gauge?

I’ll take a look at the schematics in the meantime.