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Datalogger

Topic Type: 
Question

Anything new. I would like to build a mult-ichannel temp. datalogger for my greenhouse, and hoping to share someones experiences.

dorn's picture

Hi John - did you see this related post today? http://farmhack.net/forums/20-diy-datalogger-waterproof-housing

R.J. Steinert's picture

Hi John - I've been working on the Fido project that focuses on sensing temperature and sending text messages when a temperature is detected that is outside the bounds a farmer sets. I'm interested in the need to have more than one temperature sensor and also data logging. We're thinking about adding that to the Fido design but I'm wondering more what certain people use the historic data of multiple temperature sensors for. It may sound like a stupid question and I can guess what you folks might want that data for but I'm interested in hearing it from the folks who need it. Would you mind describing for me what you plan on doing with that data? Your help is much appreciated. Thanks!

\ R.J. Steinert

johncrane1's picture

Sorry. I had forgotten about this. I was expecting email if there was any response.

I would like a multi-channel data logger for several specific uses, and for general experimenting.

Last year I built an experimental 8 x 32' solar green house that I am solar heating with 32 drums of water for heat storage, and I would like to track its performance in various locations.

Over a period of years I have collected a number of solar collectors and I have 8 fancy 8' parabolic concentrators I would like to try using in a way dissimilar to there original use, and it would be very useful to be able to track there specific performance.

Thanks for your interest.

John

jennajane's picture

Wow, I like that this type of project is getting more interest. I really like the project post by Ed, thanks Dorn. I have been going the other way and replaced my Uno with a Mega board and started to ask it to do more things. I am still running an onboard analog temp sensor along with 2 digital temp sensors attached to a single pin. I have added three relays to control the furnace, ventilator and a heated greenhouse table. The best part about my project is the wireless door bell that rings in the house when temps go out of range or the power goes out.

This winter I am hoping to get a wireless display to our house so it is easy to monitor. Should be pretty straight forward with a couple of xbees. One day I would like it all sent to my smart phone, but I feel like text messages is not the best way for me. I could easily get my Mega board a wifi signal so it would be easier to make the jump that way then over cell signals.

Let me know if you have any specific questions? I would be happy to help, although things are pretty busy on the farm right now, these are usually winter projects for me ;)

Jenna

johncrane1's picture

It's been a looong time since I've built any electronics, but the Arduino seems pretty simple. What I'm hoping to do is build a 4 to 6 channel temp setup with sensors at the end of cables. I haven't read any thing about voltage drop problems, so I'm assuming the losses would be minimal.

Last yeat I built a solar greenhouse with 36 barrels of water for heat retention. I think I can hold 50° F but I would like to sample the temperature in a number of places, to see how it's performing.

I am also planning a project around a number of parabolic collectors I have, and would like to see how they perform with different flow rates

Thanks for your information. I have never done any programming ...and I realize there are tutorials out there, but if I get stuck I might call for help.

Rural's picture

I built a Raspberry Pi based datalogger earlier this year. I had to do some soldering to get a few temperature sensors hooked up. Made the device host it's own wireless network SSID and had it serve a web-page with RRDtool graphs of the data as well as an option to download everything in a CSV.

This was just a prototype, but it was simple enough to set up. If I were to do it again, I'd probably use a RPi and an Arduino. The RPi is powerful enough that you can use modern tools and languages and the Arduino is excellent to doing low-level interfacing with the sensors.

I'll have a look at the existing datalogger projects and see if there is a way that I can contribute.