Quote Originally Posted by Dave View Post
Amoque, What is, or what are the devices you are setting the on/off/day commands to? I personally have had good experiences using one of the ESP8266 devices with ESPBASIC. That way you can have a WIFI interface to your device. You can set up the web interface with buttons and switches as well as sliders for variable data. ESPBASIC is free and the devices I have used are the ESP8266-1 512k and the LOLIN 4M modules.
I have/ am looking at the BASIC ESP modules, but I hesitate to get bogged down with a learning curve - my community of fish are greatly inconvenienced by my lack of knowledge. That said, I am reading up and will leave room for expansion or modification perhaps on a second build or as a wireless serial option. My efforts were an engaging project as a beginner and replacing commercial products with my own was exciting, but I have now come to rely on it and in doing so, I have come to the realization of a significant difference between hobbyist and professional - reliability, reparability, and responsibility. Another lesson learned.

For now, I think I'll reuse the serial code I used previously to set the clock, set the pattern of the lights, adjust temperature, dose supplements, and other such mundane tasks as distract from my enjoyment of the hobby. It's not so difficult, one of the Chinese 8 relay boards handles the 110V and, other than that there are only five 12V sockets (3 populated with dosing pumps), some status LEDs, and an I2C OLED for output. Input is a few ADC channels, a flow meter, and 3 buttons - and a venerable, but reliable serial channel for communications.

Each device has its own identifier, device 1 is an RTC, 2 is a light, 3 is a dosing pump, 4 is a heater, 5 is a "top-off" pump... I use a generic string to code/transfer values to read and write values to and from EEPROM. These values are read periodically (once per minute) to control the individual components.

Last, in regard to the suggestion for Wi-Fi. I think it would be convenient to use a well designed visual interface for monitoring (especially) and control, but mostly this my need is limited to occasionally adjusting the clock, or reducing the dosage of this or increasing the dosage of that... What I would much appreciate is - eventually - a web camera so that I could watch them from afar!