Reef-Pi questions

[rolibr24]

Reef-Pi has peaked my interest... I have a Apex on my main tank, but I am looking for some cheaper options for the tanks in our kids room's.

My son is 10 and loves electronics and circuitry. He has graduated past those "snap circuit" kits and I have been looking at arduino or the like for him to expand his knowledge. This might be a nice little project for us. I would really like to see him get into electronics, mainly controls and would like him to start dabbling in programming.

I am sure this has all been covered in the various Reef-Pi threads, but digging through those threads is very time consuming and lately I don't seem to have very much time to browse.

What is a approximate cost of a Reef-Pi build?
If I were to do a build I would want a temp and PH probe. Possibly salinity probe. Timer for lights and the ability to control powerheads. Pretty basic stuff.

Where is a decent one stop shop to buy everything? And is there a consolidated list of what components are needed?

 

[reef lover]

Bump!

 

[Muwahha]

I have honestly been looking and researching on some of this myself. I will be following along. Only bit I can add is I know target sells the basic starter kit for the Raspberry-Pi. That at least gets you the initial part of the whole setup going.

 

[tanked4u]

Here is a basic reef-pi project plan with parts list:

Adafruit Learning System

learn.adafruit.com

I have been thinking about taking a shot at it myself.

 

[Ranjib]

Since reef-pi is a modular system you can pack one or more features in a single build and the cost will vary correspondingly. A full blown controller can cost you very similar to proprietory controller if you dont have electronics tools or just build one controller (since many parts can only be bought in multiple quantities).
A very basic power controller can be just a pi and a tplink hs103 smart plug. Together they should cost you less than 50-70$, add a temperature sensor and that will cost you another 10$ ... and so on. Whats best is to call out specific features you want and how durable component you are looking for and we can provide you some information. For most common scenarios i'd suggest this setup
- A pi 3
- An hs300 smart powerstrip
- A ds18b20 temperature sensor
- A float switch (for ato)
- A 12V peristaltic pump
This should let you do power control, temperature control and ato . You can also use one of the hats made by various community members

 

[lilgrounchuck]

I built one out with temp probes, ph, dosing control, and light control an I think total spent was around $200 - $250. I already had a pi, so the cost was for boards, cables, connectors, 5/12v Meanwell supply, 4 head dosing pump, probes, and an enclosure. Add another $30 ish if you need the pi, plus whatever for power control, but I haven’t built that out yet so I can’t give you an estimate, though I am thinking of just going with the kasa Alexa smart strip and calling it a day. I think the big one is like $70.