Testing 1, 2, 3, testing...

Before I went any further, I wanted to test the opto circuits I'd built, so I needed to know which pins were which on the RJ45 connector. I used this, which was the clearest description I found, with a nice easy diagram - so looking at the RJ45 jack socket on the board, with the board the right way up, the pin on the left is 1.
According to the circuit info. in the assembly instructions, pins 4 and 5 are connected together, and this is where the +ve end of my 5V power supply had to be connected, and pins 7 and 8 are connected together, GRND, and this is where the -ve end had to be connected.

Below is a photograph of my testing set-up, using 3 D cells (giving approx. 4.5V) and some alarm wire all blu-tacked together. It took some fiddling to get continuity; too much blu-tak insulated the alarm wire strands!


I stood the battery-tower up and wedged it inside a perfectly-sized cardboard box to hold it all together better. Here is a photo' of the circuit board with its optical sensor blocked with some folded corrugated card (the wire in the foreground is not actually making contact yet) , and below that a photo' with the LED lit.




Believe me, holding the wires to get this working whilst taking a clear photo' was no mean feat!
Hoorah! All 3 circuits work as hoped, with the LED lighting when the sensor is blocked, and going off when unblocked. I am delighted! My first ever soldering was a success!