A USB Power Controled Plug Strip. With Isolation.

Step 4 Close it up and test!

So with the wiring completed. and checked. Its time to close it up and test. I recommend starting with things other then your computer and all its toys for testing. Plug a light bulb into the plugstrip. Plug the power strip into the wall. If everything is correct, nothing will happen. Now DO NOT USE YOUR COMPUTER FOR THE NEXT STEP. Find yourself a USB charger from your iWatever, and plug it into the wall. When you plug the USB cable from the unit into the charger the lightbulb should light. This way if you get anything wrong, the most you should be out is the cost of the charger.

Troubleshooting: If it does not work check the switch on the power strip. Then check if you have the polarity from the USB cable to the SSR correct.

Hope you have enjoyed this. Its a fun little project. And has the side benefits of making your life easier, saving you money on electricity, and doing your part to save the planet.

Keep tinkering,
Richard.

Comments

[jlongton]

I just gathered all the components to build a similar device when i realized that the +5vdc delivered to the USB port remains on when in standby mode. I have an HTPC that I connect to my TV. I rarely turn it off. Instead I use a wireless mouse and keyboard to put it in and out of standby. I would like to be able to turn off the peripherals when in standby. It seems like I might have to connect to a 5v power supply plug inside the PC instead. anyone know of a better solution?

[toymotorhead]

I can think a few possible fairly simple workarounds to try.

1) Check read up on the motherboard in your HTPC. On some motherboards the USB power can be selected either with jumpers on the Mainboard, or in BIOS as to weather they have power when shutdown or in standby.

2) If you have the room you can install a cheepo PCI USB interface, that should power down when you go to standby, you don't need anything fancy, I would suggest eBay.

3) Check if your power supply powers down the +5v supply to the diskdrives when it goes into standby, the red wire is +5V and the Black is ground. There are usually a couple of extra connectors available.

[jlongton]

thanks for the suggestions.

1) I need to have at least 1 port powered while on standby to wake it with my wireless keyboard. so this likely won't work, unless there is a separate jumper for front and rear ports.

2) This is a possibility. If i can find a cheap one, and nothing else works, I might do this.

3) This is another possibility, but requires a bit more work and makes it more permanent to this PC.

It would be nice to have an outlet on the box you made where the PC could be plugged in. Then when the PC was turned on or woken up it would trigger the relay to turn on the strip. I'm not sure how the relay would be triggered though. it would have to detect the current or something,

[nickboy98]

pretty good, a good use for this would be in a caravan, buy one of those usb smoke lighter thingy's and you could power a whole caravan with 5 volts of power, even one of those usb solar thingys power an entire caravan with tiny solar power

[joshnosh]

no mate this just turns on whatever you have plugged into the strip when you turn your pc on like an automatic switch
it dosent make the power from the usb
usb is is only 500ma so you would get virtually nothing if you converted it to mains (you might be able to power a tinny tinny light bulb)
and if you plugged a tiny solar cell into an inverter (a box that makes mains ac from a dc supply ) nothing would happen because its tinny.
you can convert a 9v battery to give you 100,000v but you wouldn't be able to replace a power station with a 9v battery because the output is very small

[carlos3366]

excellent. what happens if you have your pc pluged into the same power strip? as soon as you shut down your pc the whole power strip goes down? would this damage your pc since it will not have electrical power to normally shut down itself.

[skrubol]

You won't be able to turn the PC on in the first place. It won't damage the PC though.