FTVC Solderless Microlab

An open source jacketed lab reactor made from off-the-shelf components you can buy online.

An introduction to the project is here: docs/index.md

Read the motivation behind the project here: docs/motivation.md

The full replication and assembly instructions here: docs/assembly.md

Production vs Development

The instructions below are for a fresh install of the Microlab software (backend and GUI) on your development machine. If you intend to construct a full Microlab, we recommend using our pre-made disk images. There are two:

A "production" image that runs all software on startup and includes the drivers for a goodtft-compatible 3.5 inch mini-display.
A "development" image designed to be used with an external HDMI monitor and a USB mouse and keyboard.

If you wish to develop on a regular computer with emulated hardware, follow the instructions below.

Docker Development

For ease of setup/experimentation we added docker containers for both the GUI and the API. If you don't have docker-compose installed on your system you can install docker desktop following these docs

git clone https://github.com/FourThievesVinegar/solderless-microlab.git
cd solderless-microlab

## To run API & GUI
docker-compose up --build gui

## Alternatively
## To run just the API
docker-compose up --build api

If you're running docker with a hardware setup you'll need to edit docker-compose.yml and uncomment the lines specified in the file.

Setup

Clone the repo:

$ git clone https://github.com/FourThievesVinegar/solderless-microlab.git
$ cd solderless-microlab

API Server

Install dependencies:

Python

(for Debian / Ubuntu)

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python-virtualenv python3-virtualenv

Note: some versions of Linux have dropped support for Python2 and python-virtualenv.

(for macOS)

$ brew update
$ brew install python3
$ pip3 install virtualenv

Set up a Python virtual environment: virtualenv -p python3 --system-site-packages env

$ cd backend
$ virtualenv -p python3 --system-site-packages env
$ source env/bin/activate
(env) $ pip install -r requirements.txt

Install needed packages

(on the Pi)

sudo apt -y install screen git python3-flask python3-pip python3-serial python3-libgpiod

Start the server:

(env) $ python main.py

Web GUI

Install dependencies:

(for Debian / Ubuntu)

Follow a guide to install yarn for Debian:

https://classic.yarnpkg.com/en/docs/install/#debian-stable

In summary:

$ curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
$ echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install yarn

(for macOS)

$ brew update
$ brew install yarn

Run the GUI:

$ cd gui
$ yarn install
$ yarn start

The GUI will now be listening on port 3000.

Hardware Emulation

To run the software without a functioning hardware environment, go to the settings menu and change the "Microlab Controller" setting to "simulation-pi" and "Lab Hardware Config" to "ftv_simulation_microlabv0.5.0"

Enabling SSH

For ease of remote development, you may want to enable SSH on the Pi. Instructions for doing so can be found here: https://itsfoss.com/ssh-into-raspberry/