Hardware

Posted May 5, 2021 Updated Jul 18, 2024

Hardware header image

By TheYOSH

6 min read

Hardware

Raspberry PI

The software is actively tested and fully supported on a Raspberry PI 3 or 4. Other Raspberry PIs could work, as testing on more devices is not doable. So there are messages that Pi Zeros should work. But I cannot test it, and therefore offer limit support.

Bluetooth

With the new installers, it looks like that Wifi is disabled after installation. This will also block the bluetooth functionality. So make sure you have enabled Wifi by using the raspi-config tool and configure your Wifi setup. This will activate the Wifi and bluetooth chip.

GPIO

All the hardware that is connected through GPIO pins needs to use the physical pin number as address. This means a number from 1 - 40.

Power saving

Some GPIO sensors can benefit from using power saving. A good example is the analog/digital moisture sensor YTXX

Power management works that you connect the red (power) wire of the sensor to a GPIO pin, which will be put to high so that the sensor get powered. After 1.0 sec a measurement is taken, and afterwards the power to the sensor is shutdown.

When you want to enable power saving just enter an extra GPIO pin number, where the RED power cable is connected to, to the address separated by a comma.
Ex: [GPIO Readout pin],[GPIO power saving pin]

remark: Not all sensors will work with power management.

Analog sensors

It is possible to add analog sensors to TerrariumPI. But as TerrariumPI only has digital GPIO ports, an extra add-on is needed to add analog ports. For now the RaspIO Analog Zero is known to work. But any MCP3008 based board should work. The downside is that you will miss some GPIO pins for other use.

I2C bus

By default there is only 1 I2C bus available. But it is possible to add more I2C busses to your Raspberry PI. To select a different I2C bus then 1, use the following address notation:
<I2C Address>,[I2C Bus number]

<I2C Address> is mandatory and you can use the number shown in the i2cdetect. Adding ‘0x’ in front is allowed. So either 3c, 3c,1, 0x3c and 0x3c,1 are valid and the same I2C addresses.

The [I2C Bus number] is optional and can be omitted. The default value is 1.

Run the command i2cdetect -y 1 in order to see what is connected to your I2C bus. A correct working I2C bus should produce the following outcome:

       0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
         -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- 27 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 3c -- -- --
40 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70 -- -- -- -- -- -- --
 

I2C Multiplexer

With an I2C multiplexer you can add more I2C busses to TerrariumPI. Support for I2C multiplexers depends on the support in the OS. For now there is support for pca9542 (2 channel), pca9545 (4 channel), and pca9548 (8 channel) muxes.

I2C IO Expander

There is support for two I2C IO Expanders so you can have extra GPIO relays or GPIO buttons if needed. This will update the GPIO address to:
pcf857<4/5>-<IO expander port>,<I2C Address>,[I2C Bus number]

Either use pcf8574 or pcf8575 to select the used IO expander.

<IO expander port> is mandatory and is a number from 0 till max ports - 1.

<I2C Address> is mandatory and specified here.

Relays

We currently support 32 types of relays. Relays which has a dial icon after their name are dimmers.

Bright-PI

DC Dimmer

Denkovi V2

Energenie LAN

Energenie RF

Energenie USB

FTDI

GPIO

HD30A 4 Channel Electromagnetic I2C Relay 12V 30A

I2C 4Channels LED AC dimmer

IRF520 Dimmer

Kasa Smart

LED-Warrior18

Meross power switches

NextEVO Universal AC MAINS Dimmer (MPDMv4.1)

PCA9685 dimmer

Qwiic Relay

Remote dimmer

Remote relay

Script dimmer

Script relay

Sequent Microsystems 4 Relay Card

Sequent Microsystems 4 Relay Card Ver. 4

Sequent Microsystems 8 Relay Card Ver. 1 - 2

Sequent Microsystems 8 Relay Card Ver. 3

Sequent Microsystems 8 Relay Card Ver. 4

Shelly

Sonoff (Tasmota)

Sonoff D1 Dimmer (Tasmota/DIY)

Tapo P100 Mini Smart Wi-Fi Socket

Voltcraft SEM6000

WEMO Smart plug

Sensors

We currently support 37 hardware types of sensors, measuring altitude, co2, conductivity, distance, fertility, humidity, light, moisture, ph, pressure, temperature, uva, uvb, uvi: