Raspberry Pi to switch on/off power supplies

Stirlo

New elf
Joined
Nov 22, 2018
Messages
17
Hi all, new comer here. Planning my show for next year just starting to order my gear.
Looking into how to manage the 240vac side of things, would like to have the raspberry pi using fpp to control a contactor to switch on the 240vac which supplies the power supplies via a gpio pin of the raspberry pi.
Has anyone done this before and could give me some tips on how to do this.
Dont yet have my hands on a raspberry pi to test anything. Have read the manual but not really clear there is a section towards that back which mentions scripts and gpio on/off??
 

Nuzzy

Apprentice elf
Joined
Aug 6, 2017
Messages
75
Location
Denmark
I just use a timer that plugs into the power point and use it to turn on the power supplies about 2 minutes before the show starts then turn them off about 5 minutes after it’s finished. By the end of the month there is a couple that are around 30 seconds out which is why they start a few minutes early.
 

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
Community project designer
Generous elf
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Jun 12, 2010
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4,681
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Victoria Point (Brisbane)
While it's easy enough to control a relay via the GPIO, don't use one of the $5 eBay relay modules to switch the mains directly. You could use it to control a larger contactor / relay with a DC coil though.
 

Stirlo

New elf
Joined
Nov 22, 2018
Messages
17
Yeh fully understand requirements when comes to switching the 240 side of things, but more looking for how to do it via fpp
 

David_AVD

Grandpa Elf
Community project designer
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Jun 12, 2010
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Victoria Point (Brisbane)
It's really as simple as assigning the GPIO pin an FPP channel and it just works. The relay becomes a single channel controlled the same way the rest of lights are.
 
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