To All, I have an interesting problem that I need to solve. I have an older electronic blackjack machine that has blown the coin hopper pay out circuit. No schematic of the board is available and the pcb has a 25 cent sized burned clean through it.... The good part is that I found a chip that puts out a 5 volt signal when the "jackpot" is hit and the coin hopper needs to start. This 5volt signal stops when the jackpot has been paid.
I was thinking that a simple relay would work, but then I worried about pulling to much amperage out of the chip, which by the way is some sort of specialty chip, thus I don't know what the chip can stand. So, I figure that I need some sort of opto isolator chip that has a very small amperage draw. This chip would allow me to use a separate power supply to trigger the relay, with say a 2n3904 transistor.... I just don't know what chip to use that would isolate the 5v trigger lead from a separate 5v powered circuit. The two circuits would not share a ground.
any ideas??????
Bob in phx....