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!
Adafruit has had paid day off for voting for our team for years, if you need help getting that going for your organization, let us know – we can share how and why we did this as well as the good results. Here are some resources for voting by mail, voting in person, and some NY resources for our NY based teams as well. If there are additional resources to add, please let us know – adafruit.com/vote
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
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!