When it came to the software I was really wanting to try out some software I had seen which if I could do it over I would have done something differently but due to time and so much going on it wasn't in the books. I had to make something work even tho it was a bit of a pain.
So I decided to use TerrariumPi currently it is only able to be run headless on the raspberry pi 4.
You can check out TerrariumPi over on GitHub here: https://github.com/theyosh/TerrariumPI
So the great thing about the software was the ability to quickly add items to your raspberry pi and get them working with the mass amounts of features available in the software I was inclined to proceed with it. But like everything there is limitations to the software. Since I had to run the raspberry pi in headless mode, I would have to forfeit other things like remote desktop and being able to run other things I wanted to on the pi. But since I was only running this on the raspberry pi I decided there would be no reason I would need any sort of extra cooling for the pi so I could use the air circulation in the system once its fully enclosed to act as the cooling system for the pi I am OK with it running around the 40 - 45 oC that it has been for the current time.
The one thing that stand out the most is being able to add your relays and get them setup quickly like I stated about the quickness to do so above. This is great and makes for solving any issues painless. so currently I only have 3 switches running of my 10 but will need more the bigger the project becomes. If I decided I wanted a bigger enclosure or add on this setup would certainly accompany those upgrades.
Adding them is as simple as adding the GPIO port the switch (relay) is on and then adding some information on what it is and the time and duration period you want. As you can see above here I have the the lights on the unit turned on from 7am to 11pm and then I have the watering being done from 7:44am to 7:59am. The watering schedule is set to the time I know I am sitting near the unit having my morning coffee just in case something comes up.
Now I am not going to go into a lot of detail about the software as I will show some demonstrations in a video on it and show the switches being activated. I do have a lot to add to the unit so I am sure the software will be used in more examples going forward so stay tuned for those.
All 3d printed parts can be found here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4644039