DSC-BRAIN USER GUIDE · START HERE
Welcome — how to use this guide
Who this guide is for, how it is organised, and the conventions every page uses.
● verified for 9.0.0 · firmware train 8.2.0.0
● last verified 2026-09-17 · mirrored 2026-09-15
DSC-Brain is the Raspberry Pi control brain and dashboard that runs a DSC-HUB grow kit. This guide covers what you see on the dashboard, what each control does, how to set the kit up, and what to do when something goes wrong.
Who this is for
- New users unboxing a kit: start with Setup (section 1) and read it top to bottom.
- Daily operators checking the room: Using the dashboard (section 2) is a page per desk, in the order they appear in the navigation.
- Power users tuning behaviour: Settings reference (section 3) has every settings row, and How it works (section 4) explains the model behind them.
- Whoever maintains the kit: Maintenance & updates (section 5), Troubleshooting (section 6) and Reference (section 7).
How pages are organised
| Section | Answers the question |
|---|---|
| 0 · Start here | What is this thing and what do the words mean? |
| 1 · Setup | How do I get from a boxed kit to a live room? |
| 2 · Using the dashboard | What is on each desk and what does each control do? |
| 3 · Settings reference | What does every setting change, and where is it stored? |
| 4 · How it works | Why does the kit behave the way it does? |
| 5 · Maintenance & updates | How do I update, back up, restore and reset? |
| 6 · Troubleshooting | Something is wrong. What do I check, in what order? |
| 7 · Reference | Lists: every alert, every route, every port, every journal action. |
Conventions
- Paths in the dashboard are written as a breadcrumb: Settings › Devices › Cameras. The URL fragment is given in code when a deep link is useful, for example
#/settings/devices#cameras. - Names match the screen. The dashboard says Probe and Plant, never Seat or POT. The two tents are the 4×8 and the 2×4; the space around them is the room. Together they are the kit's zones.
- Held, stale and grey are not errors. The dashboard never invents a number. A grey tile, a HELD chip or a dashed line means the kit does not currently have a trustworthy reading, and the page will say why. See Reading the dashboard honestly.
- Versions. There are two: the brain/dashboard version (three parts, e.g. 9.0.0) and the device firmware stamp (four parts, e.g. 8.2.0.0). They move independently. See Versions explained in section 5.
- Every page carries metadata (top of the page): the version it was verified against and the date. If the version on your Settings › System › About card is newer than the one on a page, the page may be behind.
Not covered here
- Building the hardware, wiring, and firmware development. Those live in the engineering wiki.
- The retired Home Assistant lab. DSC-Brain 9.x has no Home Assistant in the product path.
DSC-Brain user guide · Welcome — how to use this guide · this page is edited on the site; the Notion original was retired after the mirror