Light or solenoid control between multiple Pis

I have a project I want to work on that would involve multiple Pis. I want to have them talk to each other via wifi/bluetooth with a main one with a display while the others each control a light or solenoid. Would this be possible with a bunch of Pis or would an arduino be the better option? Also would it be possible to daisy chain them so the main pi would know which state each pi would be in? Even if it is too far from the furthest unit? My experience so far has been with building the handheld emulators, so this is a big leap for me since those had walkthroughs. I'm thinking a Pi4 and a bunch of zeroes for the smaller units to reduce the cost.

feiticeir0 over 4 years ago
Hi Josh !
It can all boil down to what are you more comfortable with.

It doesn't need to be a Raspberry PI. To control a light or a solenoid probably an Arduino would be better:
less power consumtion
no problems with the SD card or not having a proper shutdown

My solution would be to have a Raspberry PI with the display (the main one) and all the others being Arduinos or similar. You have arduinos with wifi and/or bluetooth - something that already comes with a Raspberry PI .
You can make them send a kind of "heart-beat" every x seconds or minutes with it's status . If it's far from the furthest unit, it still possible, but that's a programming issue and not hardware related. You can program them to send a status to the closest unit and that unit sends both it's status and the other unit status to the next unit and so on and so on.. Like a mesh network. In my mind, that will only be a programming issue.

Note: You can also make it work with RPI zeros', but if power could be an issue, or better off with arduinos
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anderson3250 over 4 years ago in reply to feiticeir0

I never thought of mixing them together. Thank you, your explanation was very clear. I figured the programming would be my biggest hurdle in getting this to work.
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beacon_dave over 4 years ago

"... or would an arduino be the better option ?..."

Perhaps take a look at this 27x Arduino interactive control project at Carnegie Science Center for ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypBI0wJYfcQ

https://blog.adafruit.com/2018/03/05/200-button-wall-with-light-sound-and-interactive-effects-also-a-tour-of-the-project…

Replace the Nanos with wireless equivalents depending on your requirements.
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feiticeir0 over 4 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

I've seen this - in the Adafruit's website - before . It's a massive wall and very very big ! It's awesome
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anderson3250 over 4 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

Very cool, looks complicated but rather simple at the same time. Thank you for the link! I'm looking at a much more simplified use, so hopefully I can get it working. I plan to start with 2 lights/boards and if I can get that to work I plan to scale up and then try my hand with the solenoids. Lights are the cheaper option to start.
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beacon_dave over 4 years ago in reply to anderson3250

"...I'm looking at a much more simplified use, so hopefully I can get it working..."
You may want to try and pick up a copy of Tom Igoe's 'Making Things Talk' to help you along the way.

The 3rd Edition especially has quite a number of simple microcontroller projects using wireless communication methods.
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/making-things-talk/9781680452143/
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mp2100 over 4 years ago in reply to beacon_dave

I discovered that book this year at my local library. I would have found it sooner but the title is a bit misleading. Once I opened it and started reading, wow , full of great information and ideas.
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