USB Andon with Relay Controller

thingiverse

A case that holds a generic 4-channel USB Relay board inside and allows for the mounting of an inexpensive Andon/Stack light.to a wall or other surface. There are pass-throughs in the lid and box for the Andon wires to connect to the relay board. There are many, many generic brands of these 4-channel relay boards - look for one with blue 'Songle' relays (or no-name blue relays), as these all seem to be a consistent size. [Here's an example from Aliexpress](https://bit.ly/3nO6qkW). Similarly, there are many manufacturers of cheap Andons. This design is made for the cheapiest kind with a square plastic base, a small allen bolt for adjusting the tilt of the unit, and between 1 and 5 lights. [Here's an example, also from Aliexpress](https://bit.ly/3q0jCp4). You'll need a power supply to power both the relay board and the Andon, each of which comes in either a 12v or 24v variety. You'll have an easier time with the wiring if you match the voltage of the relay board to the voltage of the Andon. All of the Andons I've seen are common anode - that is, you attach one of their wires directly to the 12/24V supply line, then use your relay board to selectively ground one or more wires to turn the desired lights on. I've written some Python code that encapsulates the control of this kind of setup; for my use case, it's specifically targeted to displaying the state of a Prusa Mini 3D printer, but the code should be easily adaptable to other use cases. [That code is available on GitHub](https://github.com/JeffersGlass/prusa-usb-andon).