Best Raspberry Pi for ReefPi

dportero · Sep 23, 2019

Hello,

I have been trying to find some information on this but haven't been successful. If I missed something please point me in the right direction.

I want to build a reefpi, but I don't know if the pi zero w that is shown in the adafruit tutorials is perfect for this project, or if it would be better to go to something like the 3b+

Thanks!

Michael Lane · Sep 23, 2019

Pi zero should be fine for most builds. However it can depend on what you intend to do with reef-pi, whether you expect to run headless, and if you expect to run any other software on it.

Post your build goals and I'm sure we can help recommend pi zero/3/4.

dportero · Sep 24, 2019

I am thinking about running headless. If I were to want a screen would that work better on something other than the zero?

I want to have ph, temp, ato, power, dosing, and if possible have overflow protection.

dportero · Sep 24, 2019

I'm also curious if there is a ready-made PCB board that would work with what I want to do. I'm finding information hard to find in the mega thread

rq786 · Sep 24, 2019

Following along as i am also looking to build one to monitor ph and temp

brandon clow · Sep 24, 2019

I went from a 3B to a 4B and love the improvement in my GUI responsiveness. I currently run 16 outlets, 9 led channels on a pca9685, 2 temp ds18b20's, and 5 float switches with no issue. Soon to be adding ph and integrating my doser. My 3B worked well but after some water ingress into my case caused a no boot the fastest replacement was a 4B 2gb. As Michael said it's all about your build goals. While I have never ran a zero I can speak for a 3 rev 1.2 B and a 4B 2gb. The 3B was working acceptably as its sole reefpi function (not saying it couldn't do more). The only qualm I had was with chrome resource consumption so switching to firefox worked well. With the 4B I am now running some other unrelated reef pi tasks alongside a lag free reef pi. I am not running headless of course as eluded above.

dportero · Sep 24, 2019

brandon clow said:
I went from a 3B to a 4B and love the improvement in my GUI responsiveness. I currently run 16 outlets, 9 led channels on a pca9685, 2 temp ds18b20's, and 5 float switches with no issue. Soon to be adding ph and integrating my doser. My 3B worked well but after some water ingress into my case caused a no boot the fastest replacement was a 4B 2gb. As Michael said it's all about your build goals. While I have never ran a zero I can speak for a 3 rev 1.2 B and a 4B 2gb. The 3B was working acceptably as its sole reefpi function (not saying it couldn't do more). The only qualm I had was with chrome resource consumption so switching to firefox worked well. With the 4B I am now running some other unrelated reef pi tasks alongside a lag free reef pi. I am not running headless of course as eluded above.

I don’t think I need that much on my controller but as I am thinking about it, having the ability to expand would be nice. I think I’m going to go with a 3b+

Michael Lane · Sep 24, 2019

I agree with brandon clow on this. I think the zero would probably be able to do the job if you are running headless. I haven't tried the zero yet, but the pi3 has been working very well for me so far.

Ranjib · Sep 25, 2019

pico board from blueacro and @Michael Lane 's are some of the ready made (or half ready made) options. Check out the additional resources section in reef-pi website, see if that helps

Additional Resources | reef-pi - An opensource reef tank controller based on Raspberry Pi

Following is assorted list of online resources related to reef-pi that you may find useful in addition to the adafruit guides and this website. Press releases Make magazine article on reef-pi Adafruit article on reef-pi Raspberry Pi article on reef-pi Open hardware/PCB for reef-pi pH board by...

reef-pi.github.io

dportero · Sep 25, 2019

If I were to go with one of the PCB boards, does it limit being able to change things and access different ports? Just for tinkering sake. I have experience making some limited controllers with Arduino and raspberry pis so I want to be able to tinker.

Michael Lane · Sep 25, 2019

There are trade offs. More functionality will typically mean less flexibility, but that's not always true. My boards dedicate some pins to ULN2803, and don't expose a few pins due to space and routing constraints.

On the other hand, I think they are all open source, so you may be able to modify the design if it doesn't meet your needs.