Moving from 12v to 24v

Hi,

I currently have a photon that powers a 12volt solenoid. The circuit is very basic, it is shown in the below picture. Not shown in the picture, but my photon is powered by usb, although I will be changing this, probably for a 9volt battery later.

SolCir01
Credit for the above image/circuit The diode is a 1N4007.

I have found that my solenoid is not powerful enough for what I need. I in fact already knew this before building the 12v circuit because the solenoids are already being used in a piece of equipment that I’m attempting to reconstruct circuit board wise (they are 24v solenoids), but I wanted to first do it in 12v to ensure I had the solenoid firing right, which I now do.

I have a couple of concerns I wanted to run by you all before I switch over to the 24v dc power supply and solenoid…

  1. Based on the circuit above, can I just replace the current 12v dc power supply with a 24v dc power supply and be good to go, or do I need to replace any other components?
  2. Do I need to provide something more in the way of ground? currently, as you can see everything goes from the neutral on the power supply to the gnd on the photon. I’m concerned going to 24v will require me to do more but not sure what, as many of the 24v power supplies I’ve seen still just supply 2 pins, positive and neutral. I’m worryed I’ll blow my photon, the solenoid or my kicthen table.
  3. I read that the breadboard will melt at 24v… so I can’t use it. Is this correct? And if so, is using a protoboard and soldering my own option for building my prototype, or is there anything less “fixed” I can use?

Thanks for any pointers you can provide, I appreciate your time.

Cheers,
Happy

Your good to go, although without knowing more about your solenoid, you might look into using a beefier diode.

No, you do not need a heavy Ground signal going to your Photon. The ground is just a return path to drive the transistor from the pin your controlling the gate with.

This is absurd. What melts them (among other silly things) is when someone sticks in a To-220 Transistor, Fet or other device that the legs get super hot, and just simply melts the plastic.

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Thanks, seulater, that’s really helpful, and reassuring.

I’ll look into a more powerful diode, thanks.

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