Regarding the automation, I built a DIY closed loop distillation process with similar i/o requirements. I have nowhere near the skill required to build a dedicated board but found that node-red running on raspberry pi using mqtt to talk to nodemcu running tasmota created an extremely extensible and modular platform. I’m running 8 thermocouples, two pumps, two flow meters, two load cells, current sensing coil and zero crossing ssr to chop current to a 6kw 240v heating element. With tasmota the little mcus are just kind of like legos and i just put them where the wiring is convenient and keep some spares.
All of the i/o is dumb, the control loops are all on the node-red flowgraph allowing for lots of visibility of terms when tuning pids.
The node-red dashboard lets you mix telemetry and control on a very touch friendly format, and i spool all of it to influxdb to compare runs over time.
I’m sure you’ve got what you need with what you’ve built but at a minimum node-red might be worth a look. I was suuuper impressed using it for this.
That seems like a perfect use of node-red. Your setup sounds pragmatic and effective; I’m sure there would be an audience for some kind of write up with diagrams, especially if it also functions as a node-red tutorial (of sorts). I know that I am regularly designing control systems for hobbyist ag setups, and I pretty quickly hit a wall due to having minimal coding background. Something like node-red seems really useful for someone in my situation. Thanks for the ideas!
It really makes the most out of the flow-programming paradigm and the integrated UI bits are really convenient.
The architecture is pretty straightforward. MQTT over wifi acts as a message bus between node-red and your 'legos'. (You don't really even need a raspberry pi, you just need to be able to run node-red, an mqtt broker and have wifi. I ran everything from containers on raspberry pi and ran the pi in AP mode which kept everything self-contained and tidy.)
For the i/o 'legos', i had more luck with the esp8266 than esp32's on Tasmota, but things have probably improved since then. You could also look at espurna, esphome, home assistant, etc. Main thing to look for is a firmware that supports some kind of async messaging protocol that nodered supports and has the i/o you need. You can buy a six pack of nodemcu esp8266's for $20 off amazon.
All of the i/o is dumb, the control loops are all on the node-red flowgraph allowing for lots of visibility of terms when tuning pids.
The node-red dashboard lets you mix telemetry and control on a very touch friendly format, and i spool all of it to influxdb to compare runs over time.
I’m sure you’ve got what you need with what you’ve built but at a minimum node-red might be worth a look. I was suuuper impressed using it for this.