Making a Home PLC with a Pico
Hardware- 6 Devlogs
- 9 Total hours
It's a self-built PLC with a Pico
Ship #1
Changes requested
Day 6 - 15.08.2026 Last day and last line of code. V1 was completed today. The project will continue with further development and upgrades, but for now I want to ship it and see how others like it.
Day 5 - 14.8.2026 Today’s plan was to redesign the PCB for the Pico, and it has now been ordered.
Day 4 13.08.2026 Today I finished all the wiring work. I also started writing the code and implemented the first two functions.
Things got tricky when Relay 4 didn’t work, and I had to spend some time troubleshooting.
In the end, I discovered that I had forgotten to solder two joints together – and now at least some parts are already running.
Day 3 - 12.08.2026 Today I measured the correct power supply, designed a mounting bracket, printed it, and installed it. I also wired several additional cables and prepared six buttons as sensors.Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to start coding yet. Tomorrow might be better.
I still need to finish some wiring, but after that everything should be ready, and I can finally begin writing the first programs.
Day 2 - 11.8.2026 – Today I assembled and wired up the entire PLC system. As you can see in the picture, the relay LEDs are already lighting up. Tomorrow I’ll continue wiring and swap out the power supply for a proper 5V 30A unit, since the current one is just a temporary/improvised setup. We might also start working on the code tomorrow.
Day 1 - 10.8.2026 – Home PLC planning is now mostly complete and construction will begin tomorrow. One small change still needs to be made to the cable layout, since I’m using relays with I/O rather than ones with just 5V/0V.
