The board has 6 independent driver circuits, perfect for controlling solenoids, small pumps, or relays controlling higher voltage / current equipment. Each channel has an LED indicator showing when it is triggered and integrated snub diode to protect your Pi from any power spikes caused by inductive loads.

In addition to controlling, it is also designed to work with a bunch of sensors right out of the box. We have broken out the 1 Wire interface for a DS18B20 temperature sensor. No need for a pull up resistor, it is already on the board! GPIO24 is set up as a plug and play input for a flow sensor. Next, we have added our favorite ADC – the ADS1015 4 Channel 12-bit Analog To Digital converter. This allows for 4 analog sensors to be connected without too much trouble! All 4 channels are broken out to induvial 3 pin pads for your preferred 0.100” / 2.54 mm connector.

Because this is designed for irrigation, we have added an extra feature to each of the analog inputs. Beside each of these analog channels is a solder jumper; this is used to choose your 3.3V source. By default this is set to the 3.3V power provided by an onboard regulator but we have also allowed each analog to be powered via a separate GPIO pin. This is done specifically for soil moisture sensors and helps prevent un-necessary corrosion caused when the sensor is powered in moist soil. Since the sensors draw a very tiny amount of voltage, they can be powered this way. Simply trip the connected GPIO pin HIGH and read the analog sensor, and turn off the pin.

For external sensors and additional hardware, we have also broken out the SPI, I2C, and Serial Port from the Pi to individual 0.100” / 2.54mm pads.