TouCans Power Cycling via Pico-W Remote Keyer

TouCans has always had an issue of accumulating charge... somewhere.

This manifests itself as the Rockmite's keyer chip rebooting the first time the key is closed after a long delay (on the order of minutes usually.) The downside of all this is what happens next. The keyer (even though it's in straight key mode) is unresponsive until the Rockmite is power cycled.

Here's the thing though. TouCans' power source is in the air now. It's in the antenna with the rest of the rig.

It's up there:

Consequently, cycling power has become a bit of an issue. Not to worry though. KO6BTY and I added two additional relays this morning, (we're eventually going to also be able to toggle the RockMite's programming line to be back to working on two frequencies.) We changed the keyer code just a bit to interpret a capital 'P' as a command to reboot the Rockmite. The command fires GPIO-17 on the Pico-W. That pin is used as the control line on the first additional relay. The ground line of the TouCans power supply is wired through the normally closed contact on that relay. When the Pico-W breaks that line for a time equivalent to 8 CW dits. After that, the power to the radio is restored! We can now do reboots in the air!

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