# Technical EU V6 Silvia model question



## Srjw (Jan 24, 2021)

I have written my own PID which runs on a raspberry pi inside my Silvia.

It's pretty cool, it saves my temps every second too so I can plot temps along a graph etc.

I am looking to add functionality to turn Silvia on from bed. I was wondering if anyone has experience in what voltage is needed to simulate pressing the switch on? I am hoping 3.3 or 5v is enough to trick her into thinking someone physically pushed the button.


----------



## 28267 (Dec 8, 2020)

@Srjw - looking at the diagrams for the newer Silvia it looks like the power button connects pins 5 & 6 on the Gicar control unit together. I'd look a using a relay or similar to simulate this from the pi to keep electrical isolation.


----------



## Robbie (Jul 18, 2019)

@AdG is right, you definitely shouldn't connect the pi GPIO to the Silvia board directly, use a relay with signal side connected to the pi GPIOs and load side connected across the power button terminals on the silvia


----------



## KoffieLog (Feb 10, 2021)

I did the exact same with my Pi. The momentary switch on the front panel shorts the 12v leads from the microcontroller. You can piggy back on these two leads, with a Bidirectional MOSFET circuit, with a common gate leading to the Pi's GPIO.


----------



## Rincewind (Aug 25, 2020)

opto isolator (optocoupler) for safety.


----------



## luiccn (Mar 24, 2021)

I would simply remove the Gicar module and control the power with the pi using a relay. This means using a GPIO to read the power button and one GPIO to control the green power LED. I would encourage you to use the same GPIO to control the power relay and green LED (5v), this way you always know if the machine is receiving power. That's what I did on my project.

This post shows how you can re-wire the silvia to exclude the Gicar module.


----------



## Rincewind (Aug 25, 2020)

@luiccn Nice project...well done :classic_smile:


----------

