AJ,
It depends on how much money you want to spend and how frequently you want to monitor the temp and how accurate you want to be. I am in the process of putting together a temperature monitoring system and controls for my greenhouse and managing it all from one of my PC's. Here are some of the options I found as I investigated the process.
1. the weather station system - You can buy several weather stations ($300 or less to $1000 or more)
http://www.ambientweather.com/products.html
2. specific temperature monitoring hardware - You can buy several things here varying from the HOBO system from Onset which are about $100 to more sophisticated TempTrax system from Sensatronics which run to several hundred dollars but have more features..
http://www.onsetcomp.com/Products/Product_Pages/HOBO_H08/H08_family_data_loggers.html http://www.tempelert.com/products/products.htm
I settled on a combination of the Sensatronics TempTrax and the HOBO monitoring system. The TempTrax has a built in web server that shows the temperatures on a web page.
http://12.216.5.221/ is my greenhouse TempTrax
http://129.186.242.2/temperature/ is a web interface I have to monitor the temperatures I am slowly programing more features into this and I hope to release it as an open source program when I am done with it.
Right now Mediacomm is having problems with my cable modem connection so you can not see it live. If you go to July 1, 2004 you can see how it graphs the temperatures in my greenhouse.
The HOBO units are less expensive and do not give you real time data. However, if you do not need real time data they are very good. You have to download the data from the logger to your computer.
I stayed away from the weather station as I decided I did not need or want all the other sensors it had.
I picked the solution I did because it gives me real time data and the ability to program other functions around the temperature monitoring, like using an X10 device to turn on and off misting, exhaust fans, etc.
If you would like more information let me know.
Tom /---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Tom Hillson Computer Services Manager |(515) 294-1543 College of Agriculture | Iowa State University ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |"The only thing I have too much of is too little time"
At 9:58 PM -0400 7/12/04, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
After reading Paul Simon's website (http://www.colorkidz.com/orchids) I was reminded of a perpetual problem of mine: temperature monitoring. While monitoring a temperature remotely isn't so much of a problem, I've been trying to find a solution that would allow me to log these data using a desktop computer. The best solution anyone has offered me is the LaCrosse wireless base station ($150) and wireless temperature/humidity sensors ($35 each). While I'm sure it's wonderful, I'd like to get away with something like this for under $200! Surely this isn't that tough.
Anyone have recommendations for an off-the-shelf temperature monitoring system that allows remote (preferably wireless) monitoring on a computer? Sure would be nice.
-AJHicks Chandler, AZ _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids
_______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids
