Pico as GPIO for Inovato Quadra

Thanks to Cody for the inspiration. The code and breadboard are more a proof of concept than a finished product. (Cooks Ritual Apology)

The circuit is on a breadboard
The code has no error checking or handshaking
Thonny and the code do not play nice

Thanks to

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72151781/how-can-i-get-raspberry-pi-pico-to-communicate-with-pc-external-devices for getting me started.

Install pip then pyserial

We need pyserial to allow us to open the serial USB connection.

Install pip (if not installed) - download the script, from https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py and run the script.
pip install pyserial

System

The Pico is connected to the host (quadra) via the normal USB connection.

The test board contains

a led
a photo resistor bridge
a button
2 120VAC relay connections

Software

Commands - sent from the host

Commands are of the form: operation pin (value). Operation can be one of:

Digital In

din pin
dinpu pin #pull up
dinpd pin #pull down

Digital Out

dout pin value

Analog in

ain pin

On Host (Quadra) examples:

Oscillator

Blink and Data

On the Pico:

I used Thonny to develop and upload the following code to the Pi Pico. Note that it uses the same USB port that I am using to send commands and read data. So, Thonny needs to be terminated before any of this works.

The software receives interprets and executes commands from the host

Details of the hardware

Photo resistor bridge -
note for the Pico 5V is 3.3V

Two views of the relays showing the control connections and the 120VAC connections
These relays have an opto-isolator driving the relay coil so the current draw is minimal - measured at 2ma.