I keep Snakes/Reptiles and I'm about to re-wire my reptile room, and am thinking of using a Pi or Arduino to control the room lights, switch the thermostats on and off, control a fan, an Insectecutor, and to control the brightness of the LED lighting in the vivariums.
I've figured that the easiest way to control the brightness of the LED's is to buy one of the dimmers and take the remote apart and just use the Pi to 'press' the buttons.
The rest are all fairly simple on/off relays
It's all time based switching not sensors so that makes it easier.
I know I'll need a relay board, and that it's best if is isolated so optocoupler based, was hoping for solid state to stop the "click" but that's not essential given I'll be switching mains voltage and not sure what current yet I've still got to work that out, I can ignore the clicks if it means I save a ton of cash
16 channel should be enough but I might consider a bit of futureproofing and aim for more channels if it's not a lot more work, but it seems that most of the boards stop at 16, if it's a lot more hassle then I'll tweak my plan slightly to cut down the number of channels needed.
I've noticed a couple of the relay boards are sold for Arduino rather than Pi, I gather that's because the Arduino has a 5v output instead of a 3.3v output, can anyone recommend a relay board suitable for the Pi, I know the board will need an external power supply but I'm fine with that, got plenty of 12v PSU's kicking about.
I've been on amazon.co.uk and seen things like the XCSOURCE 16 Channel 12V Relay Module Shield Expansion Board and lots of others that look exactly the same, will this work or am I better aiming for something specifically for the 3.3v Pi than one that will work on both Pi and Arduino?
Hope I've explained things clearly enough, I'm comfortable with wiring etc but know nothing about Pi
