Hi again. Let me explain my setup a bit better. I live in an RV full time. All lighting is 12volt.
I am trying to control ceiling lites with ESP's. Most of them have a switch on them and that's the only way to control them. Problem: Wife is quite short and can't reach them. ESP to the rescue.
ESP-01 module in the light fixture. This controls a flip-flop latching mosfet. Short tap to ground triggers on or off. If you stay active low it will not respond to another "tap" to trigger again. (Hence the need for the pulse command). When mosfet is turned on 12v goes to light and thru an LE33 voltage regulator which then goes to GPIO on ESP module as input to indicate lite on. There is also the manual switch in the fixture to turn light on via the mosfet.
ESP-01 module with the MCP23017 is (will be) wall mounted as a control panel of up to 8 momentary push buttons and indicator LED's next to each button. Here is how I am trying to make this madness function......
Button push on control sends message to lite unit to pulse mosfet trigger. This is done using rules. Sense button-sentohttp-pulsegpio. Light unit responds by turning on lite and senses this on other gpio and using rules sendtohttp-controlunit-switch corresponding LED on. Reason for the back and forth is because I want the lite to actually be on before the indicator LED is. Also, this works if you turn the light on manually.
I have all of this working on my bench now. The problem is to also make it work from automation software or browser.........
Now, after typing all that it just hit me that I am trying to control this remotely backwards. Trying to emulate the push button is not the way. I just need to tell the light to turn on. The gpio on the lite module responds correctly to the pulse command. Don't need it on the MCP23017.
I'm not sure if this is the most efficient way to go about this but it seems to work. I have been trying to find a easy solution to this because when it comes to software code I am completely useless. Just coming up with the simple rules to make it work pretty much used up all my coding skills. I'm a hardware/mechanic/bash it together kind of guy. Stumbling upon ESPEasy was exactly what I have been looking for. Kudos to the Devs for this!!!
"The glass is twice as big as it needs to be".
The trigger has to go back to either high or floating in order to for the mosfet to react to the next low trigger.
...? took me a moment to realize, but is clearly stated in the data sheet. Always a pleasure