I'm a purely software guy, I fart around w/hardware but this is the most complex thing I've ever done

I have built a pico controlled power strip - I opened up a USB wall-wart and stuck it in the powerstrip and ran 5v up to the Pico - then I ran 3v back down to the power strip to toggle the relays (using a shift register chip.) The intermediate box uses an old 5v LCD I had from my Arduino days. The relays are powered via 5v and triggered w/3v. The final box is just a connector for switches. I figured out how to stack diodes so that I can handle 7 switches from 4 wires.

—

Electrical Connections: (#’s refer to the inventory.txt file, which refers to the tagged photo)

5v power comes from the USB wall-wart (#7) AC goes into the sample place that the legs used to wire to, 5v comes out of the places where it’s soldered to the USB jack — a red/black pair goes to the relayControl (#4) board.

5v +/- go to both of the relays (#1) to supply power to them

5v +/- travels from the relayControl (#4) via the blue/brown wires to the picoControl (#5) where it goes into the 5v bus 

5v + got into the pico on VBatt, Gnd comes from the pico to the 5v - bus

3v + comes out of the pico and goes to the 3v + bus, the 3v - bus is bridged from the 5v - bus

5v +/- go to the LCD (#6) via a blk/red pair w/serial on white (see lcd.js & control.js)

3v + goes to the switchControl (#3) on blue and returns on blueWhite, orange, and orangeWhite (see switches.js & control.js) - I figured out an arrangement of diodes that will return in binary based on switch number 1-7 being closed

3v +/- travels from the picoControl (#5) via brown/white and blue/white to the relayControl (#4) board where it lands on the 3v +/- bus

3v +/- powers the shift register chip on the relayControl (#4) board (see relays.js & control.js)

pico control of the shift register travels from from the picoControl (#5) on the green/greenWhite pair down to the relayControl (#4) board

the orange/orangeWhite pair between picoControl (#5) and the relayControl (#4)  is unused/spare


—