Documentation

• 1: Overview
• 2: How to build the pc-switch
• 3: Contribution Guidelines
• 4: Similar Products

1 - Overview

What is it?

A small PCB that can be connected between your PC front IO and motherboard/mainboard.

What can it do?

• Power on/off (Shutdown)
• Hard shutdown (5-second hold)
• Reset
• Monitor PC state (on/off)
• Still be able to use the front panel connectors buttons for power, reset, and the power led.
• Power with 2 header pins. Grab power from your motherboard USB or other connectors.

Why do I want it?

Help your user know if your project will help them. Useful information can include:

• What is it good for?: What types of problems does your project solve? What are the benefits of using it?

• What is it not good for?: For example, point out situations that might intuitively seem suited for your project, but aren’t for some reason. Also mention known limitations, scaling issues, or anything else that might let your users know if the project is not for them.

• What is it not yet good for?: Highlight any useful features that are coming soon.

2 - How to build the pc-switch

Prerequisites

For DIY you need a basic soldering setup:

• Soldering iron
• solder
• optional but highly recommended: A soldering helper/hand

Parts needed for the PCB

• WEMOS D1 mini (The ESP8266-12F from AZDelivery is a popular clone here in Germany)
• 2 x Optocoupler EL817
• 2 x Resistor 220 Ohm
• Pin header for power pins: 2x1, you can use straight or angled versions
• Pin headers for front panel connectors: 3x2 pin headers, you can use straight or angled versions
• Pin headers for motherboard:
  • 3x2 pin headers, you can use straight or angled versions

Additional parts for connecting the pc-switch

• 6 x female-to-female jumper cables to connect to the motherboard
• 6 x female-to-male jumper cables to connect to the front panel connectors
• 2 x female-to-female jumper cables to connect to power (use USB or other pins from your motherboard which are always on)

Ordering the PCB

Download the Gerber file Got to https://cart.jlcpcb.com/quote Upload the file and adjust your order

Soldering

Resistors can be soldered either way, you can not do anything wrong here. Optocouplers need a specific orientation. You need to align the small circles on the board with the circles on the optocoupler.

Flashing the software

1. I think it goes without saying but you need Home Assistant running somewhere.

2. Install the ESPHome Add-On:

3. Plug in the device via USB to your PC or the PC which is running Home Assistant

4. Copy and paste the YAML from GitHub: https://github.com/ajfriesen/pc-switch

5. Now your pc-switch should pop up automatically in the device section

Connecting to a PC or Server

1. Check if your motherboard supports always-on USB and enable it if possible(sometimes this setting is in a really weird spot)
2. Connect your pc-switch to some USB header for power. Check the pins on your motherboard manual. You just need to use 5V and GND. (If you don’t have always-on power you can run a USB micro cable into your case as well)
3. Connect Reset, Power and Power LED with your board.
4. If you want to use the power button and power led on your PC case then connect those as well.

Now enjoy automating your PC.

• Turn it off or on at a specific time
• Add another button (like the Aqara ones) to Home Assistant and use that for power on/off
• Connect your voice assistant like Google Home to that switch with Home Assistant (That is what I did🙂)

3 - Contribution Guidelines

We use Hugo to format and generate our website, the Docsy theme for styling and site structure, and Netlify to manage the deployment of the site. Hugo is an open-source static site generator that provides us with templates, content organisation in a standard directory structure, and a website generation engine. You write the pages in Markdown (or HTML if you want), and Hugo wraps them up into a website.

All submissions, including submissions by project members, require review. We use GitHub pull requests for this purpose. Consult GitHub Help for more information on using pull requests.

Quick start with Netlify

Here’s a quick guide to updating the docs. It assumes you’re familiar with the GitHub workflow and you’re happy to use the automated preview of your doc updates:

1. Fork the Goldydocs repo on GitHub.
2. Make your changes and send a pull request (PR).
3. If you’re not yet ready for a review, add “WIP” to the PR name to indicate it’s a work in progress. (Don’t add the Hugo property “draft = true” to the page front matter, because that prevents the auto-deployment of the content preview described in the next point.)
4. Wait for the automated PR workflow to do some checks. When it’s ready, you should see a comment like this: deploy/netlify — Deploy preview ready!
5. Click Details to the right of “Deploy preview ready” to see a preview of your updates.
6. Continue updating your doc and pushing your changes until you’re happy with the content.
7. When you’re ready for a review, add a comment to the PR, and remove any “WIP” markers.

Updating a single page

If you’ve just spotted something you’d like to change while using the docs, Docsy has a shortcut for you:

1. Click Edit this page in the top right hand corner of the page.
2. If you don’t already have an up to date fork of the project repo, you are prompted to get one - click Fork this repository and propose changes or Update your Fork to get an up to date version of the project to edit. The appropriate page in your fork is displayed in edit mode.
3. Follow the rest of the Quick start with Netlify process above to make, preview, and propose your changes.

Previewing your changes locally

If you want to run your own local Hugo server to preview your changes as you work:

1. Follow the instructions in Getting started to install Hugo and any other tools you need. You’ll need at least Hugo version 0.45 (we recommend using the most recent available version), and it must be the extended version, which supports SCSS.

2. Fork the Goldydocs repo repo into your own project, then create a local copy using git clone. Don’t forget to use --recurse-submodules or you won’t pull down some of the code you need to generate a working site.

   git clone --recurse-submodules --depth 1 https://github.com/google/docsy-example.git
   

3. Run hugo server in the site root directory. By default your site will be available at http://localhost:1313/. Now that you’re serving your site locally, Hugo will watch for changes to the content and automatically refresh your site.

4. Continue with the usual GitHub workflow to edit files, commit them, push the changes up to your fork, and create a pull request.

Creating an issue

If you’ve found a problem in the docs, but you’re not sure how to fix it yourself, please create an issue in the Goldydocs repo. You can also create an issue about a specific page by clicking the Create Issue button in the top right hand corner of the page.

Useful resources

• Docsy user guide: All about Docsy, including how it manages navigation, look and feel, and multi-language support.
• Hugo documentation: Comprehensive reference for Hugo.
• Github Hello World!: A basic introduction to GitHub concepts and workflow.

4 - Similar Products

Silverstone has a couple of products that go in the same direction.

• Silverstone ES02-USB
• Silverstone ES02-PCIE
• Silverstone ES03-WiFi

The first 2 products work with a remote only. No easy integration is possible with Home Assistant other than adding an RF transmitter to your setup.

The third one needs a third-party app. So another app on your phone and an internet connection if I am not mistaken. Another cloud service probably will die in a few years and turn this device into e-waste afterward.