I wanted to build a high-tech terrarium, so I opted to do most of the technical system myself with a lot of help from my brother, an electrician. Together we designed an industrial style electrical/computer setup that can run the terrarium in two different modes, either controlled by a Raspberry PI, or by a set of timers. Each device can individually switch mode.
A benefit of this setup is that it’s very clean and compact. If I need to do any work on the Raspberry PI, I can easily switch everything to the timers and things will just continue running. The software I use to run the system and drive the tablet interface is Node-Red.
The terrarium has 4 T5 bulbs, 2 Solar Raptor HID lamps, a moon light led strip, 5 mist heads, several fans, an aquarium heater, a small aquarium pump for a little water stream, and an automated led strip inside the cabinet. All of these can be controlled using a tablet.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!
Make a robot friend with Adafruit’s CRICKIT – A Creative Robotics & Interactive Construction Kit. It’s an add-on to our popular Circuit Playground Express, FEATHER and other platforms to make and program robots with CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. Start controlling motors, servos, solenoids. You also get signal pins, capacitive touch sensors, a NeoPixel driver and amplified speaker output. It complements & extends your boards so you can still use all the goodies on the microcontroller, now you have a robotics playground as well.
Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!