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judetf
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Posted: December 03 2008 at 12:01 \| IP Logged

Hey Nadler,

I just found this post where you provide a macro to read temperature sensing from Qkits...

I am in the market for checking temps around my house, and I'd rather not drop the $$$ to buy an integrated system. Having found your post I went online to Qkits and I _think_ I understand everything I saw there and am ready to pull the trigger, but would love your input to make sure I have things straight.

If I understand things correctly, I am going to purchase the VK011 which will connect to my PH computer's serial port. I am also going to purchase 1-4 DS18S20 sensors which will attach to the VK011. I'll then be able to use the macro you provided (tweaked as necessary) to have PH read the temperature from any of the four sensors. I'll be able to do this with standard PH techniques, eg, updated through a timed event, stored as a global variable, displayed on a webpage, and e-mail alerts sent if it exceeds some threshold I define.

If all that is correct then I think Qkits has a new customer. I don't know a thing about soldering and I believe I am going to have to learn in order to connect the sensors to the wires to connect to the VK011. I also have no idea what kind of wire I need to purchase to run the sensors out to the rooms I wish to monitor.

Any input/thoughts you have to offer would be much appreciated. (And it goes without saying that the more I play with this stuff, particularly revolving around PH, the more I appreciate it all!)

jtf

nadler
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Posted: December 03 2008 at 12:40 \| IP Logged

You have it exactly right.

I used existing Cat5 wire. Instead of soldering the
sensors I used a Cat5 connector and just connected the
sensor to three of the eight slots by pushing them in
the connector as if they were cat5 wire. I used
something similar to this.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/search.asp?
keyword=cat+5+jacks&x=0&y=0

I then used a surface mount box similar to

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?
c_id=105&cp_id=10517&cs_id=1051705&p_id=2039&seq=1&forma
t=2
to mount the connector. It can then be plugged and
unplugged into any cat 5 cable.
There are 2 minor things to watch for. Make sure you
remember to which three wires of the eight possible the
sensor is connected and make sure the VK011 is connected
the same way. The other thing are the sensors. I have
four and I get different readings in the same
room(within a degree or so) if I switch them around.
They seem to be consistent within themselves but vary
with each other. So I won't use these sensors for
anything mission critical although through PH you could
adjust the readings so that they meet what ever
requirements you may have.

Others on this board have had success with 1 wire
sensors but I haven't tried those.

If you have any questions, let me know.
Noel

judetf
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Posted: December 03 2008 at 13:28 \| IP Logged

Wow, awesome, and thanks!

No, nothing mission critical, for sure. Just want to be able to look and see from afar...

onhiatus
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Posted: December 03 2008 at 15:24 \| IP Logged

Also check out P Anderson's one wire boards. I use the IOM #142A - It costs $60 with one DS1820, but for the extra $13 you get a lot more functionality:

More tempurature sensors (up to 32 sensors which can be temp, humidity, counters, etc)
4 Relays
4 Inputs

It should be controlable with the same ph functions (modified for the slightly different format). Personally I use a stand alone VB app to poll the board and pass the data on to ph.

In all honesty I am only using temperature sensors - but I quickly ended up with more than four... and someday I'm going to find a use for the relays and inputs!

Also note that he has the DS1820's for $4.50 each

Edited by onhiatus - December 03 2008 at 15:26

judetf
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Posted: December 06 2008 at 07:58 \| IP Logged

Hmm, good stuff to chew on. I understood roughly every fourth word on P Anderson's page describing the device, so I need to do some learning, but I can pretty easily see wanting to check the temperature in more than four locations so that may be a deciding factor.

Sorry to be uneducated, but can you explain what "4 relays" and "4 inputs" means on a practical level? For a simple application such as measuring the temperature in various locations, (which I assume is covered by your first bullet pointing out "up to 32 sensors"), what additional functionality is offered by additional relays and inputs?

judetf
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Posted: December 07 2008 at 07:27 \| IP Logged

Okay, I have a follow-up if you'll indulge me. I like Nadler's idea of using CAT5 cabling and terminating them into an RJ45 jack... that I know I can do, while I'm a bit hesitant about soldering.

How does using a "one wire" approach fit into that? Can multiple CAT5 lines be somehow spliced together? Can multiple DS1820s be daisychained onto a single CAT5 run?

I think the answer to both of those question is 'yes' but would love some reassurance.

Thanks
jtf

onhiatus
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Posted: December 08 2008 at 13:41 \| IP Logged

Both solutions use the same sensors - in fact I did almost all my wireing the same way - a sensor crimped into a cat-5 end and then just plugged into a net tap in the room. In other words - all my wiring was done using cat5 as well. Even better is that you can use splitters (1 cable in, 2 out - like phone splitters) which wouldn't work with an actual network, but are very cheap. So yes, up to 16 sensors can be daisy chained on each run

Relays - a relay is just a switch that is controlled by the board. It could be used to turn on a light, a heater, an alarm bell, pretty much anything. As I recall the relays are pretty hefty (I think it was 10A at 220v)

Inputs - I'm not exactly sure what kind of input is required (low voltage, or any voltage, or just continuity) - but this is the opposite of the relay, you can hook some kind of switch up to these and tell what state it is in. Use it to tell if a window or door is open, use it to see if someone has flipped a switch, etc. The big draw back here is that you have to poll (keep asking what the state of the input is, rather than have the board tell you when one of the input changes)

Edited by onhiatus - December 08 2008 at 13:42

spou
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Posted: December 09 2008 at 21:55 \| IP Logged

If I may add my 0.02$, I've written a pretty paper on how to hook a 1-wire network into your powerhome, including the vbscript to interface the whole thing.

You might want to look at

http://www.thespou.com/1-wire_docum.pdf

It may look a bit long, but it includes everything to do more than 12 sensors for cheap. I've been using the described setup for more than a year now. No changes, just added a few sensors.

if you think there might be some extra info added, just let me know.
Spou

onhiatus
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Posted: December 10 2008 at 13:32 \| IP Logged

Spou, very nice tutorial! If I'd had it 4 years ago I would have done it that way. (But I'm still very happy with the board I use!)

The only change I would make in your setup is to use the file monitor plug in to trigger the import function. So instead of checking every minute you would fire off the import routine whenever LogTemp writes to the data file.

All in all the rest of your set up is very similar to mine. The main differnece is my little vb app (what I use instead of LogTemp) communicates with ph via windows messaging.

Anyway nice job, anyone who is looking at setting up a sensor network should definitely read it.

Tony

judetf
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Posted: December 11 2008 at 09:00 \| IP Logged

I have read it and it's great and thanks. I think I understand the basics at this point and am just about ready to place orders for equipment to get it all setup...

Thanks to all!
jtf

GadgetGuy
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Posted: January 31 2009 at 14:52 \| IP Logged

onhiatus wrote:

Spou, very nice tutorial! If I'd had it 4 years ago I would have done it that way. (But I'm still very happy with the board I use!)

All in all the rest of your set up is very similar to mine. The main differnece is my little vb app (what I use instead of LogTemp) communicates with ph via windows messaging.

Tony - I'm now moving on to my next challenge after completing live video feeds thru PH to my iPhone and implementing a pretty complete CC center.

I am now starting on a 1-wire network to read freezer and refrigerator temps around the house. I'm planning to take the same approach used by "Spou" which looks pretty good to me.

Would you be willing to post your VB code here on the Forum as that simplier approach is all that I need, and I've already got PH working so hard that I am locking it up several times a day (causing Dave to begin to pull his hair out I'm sure). Thus I'm trying hard to keep things at a minimalist state and your approach sounds like it meets that bill!

Thanks.

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onhiatus
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Posted: February 02 2009 at 14:42 \| IP Logged

Sure - keep in mind that it will need some changes to work with a different hardware setup - I custom wrote it for the IOM#142A. I think I left things flexible enough to easly add support for aditional hardware. At least I started out with that goal. It's been so long that I don't remember what I did to finally get it working.

Since this thread came out I've been using more and more Oregon Scientific sensors with a OS WMR100 station. These are logged to the computer and ph picks them up via the file monitor plug in.

I have similar issues with powerhome being overtaxed - but I believe the plugins operate in their own thread - this is a super easy way to offload processing. If I were starting over I'd still use my custome app, but I would not bother with the windows messaging (which gets flakey if you have to restart powerhome without rebooting) instead I would write to a file and have ph monitor it.

Next time I'm at home with some time I'll dig up the vb code - it might be awhile as I've got a 6 month old at home...

judetf
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 13:17 \| IP Logged

I'm hitting myself on the forehead: I just purchased several of the Spou-recommended DS18B20-PAR sensors, and I was ready to go with all of the other parts. The sensors _just_ arrived in the mail so I rushed to my PH machine and there's my one serial port connected to my PLM controller.

My guess is that I'm out of luck on this (for the moment) and that I'm going to need to purchase a USB -> serial cable, or something along those lines, but figured I'd check in for confirmation.

Thanks,
jtf

grif091
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 13:43 \| IP Logged

See the last post in this topic for serial to usb converter.

http://www.power-home.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2107&KW= serial+to+usb

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spou
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Posted: March 02 2009 at 19:11 \| IP Logged

If it can make it easier on you, judetf, I had a similar adventure when I seupped my own thing here.

I had everything figured up, wires were pulled, and logtemp was working fine on my desktop. I move everything ove my PH machine, only to realise that both comports were already taken by the cm11 and the wd800.

I ordered a PCI card with 2 comports on it for 23 bucks, took a week to get it, but it has been working fine for almost a year and a half, with now 11 sensor,and soon 14.

judetf
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Posted: March 08 2009 at 12:43 \| IP Logged

My parts have started arriving, and I have a question:

To establish the serial connection, I pulled out a Cisco console cable that I happened to have, thinking that would provide the serial connection.

I have been unable to make it work, however. I've tried tapping the GND and DQ leads on the DS18B20-PAR sensor to every pair of wires in the console cable, and so far I have not managed to get the 1-wire software from Maxim to recognize see the 1-wire sensor on the COM1 port.

Before I waste too much time trying to make this work, does anyone know offhand whether there is something about that Cisco cable that will prevent it from working for this purpose? It seems just to be a matter of figuring out which pair to connect to the sensor's pins...

(And I fully realize this is not PH-related, but for those of you who have done this, if you have insight, I'd be much obliged!)

Thanks
jtf

grif091
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Posted: March 08 2009 at 13:55 \| IP Logged

What is the Cisco console cable connected to? It sounds like you have one end connected to a COM port and trying to connect the 1-wire sensor to the other end of the cable. The 1-wire temp sensor does not connect directly to the COM port. Perhaps I'm just reading too much into your post.

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Lee G

judetf
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Posted: March 08 2009 at 14:40 \| IP Logged

Hmm, then maybe I'm not understanding:

I took a length of CAT5 cable and terminated one end into the back of a CAT5 jack; the Cisco cable is plugged into that jack.

I left the other end of the CAT5 cable unterminated, and stripped the wires, and then one at a time connected each pair combination to the two leads on the sensor, and ran the Maxim software for each pair to see if it "saw" the sensor.

My theory was that once I identified the correct wire pair I'd turn it into a more permanent solution...

But am I doing it fundamentally wrong? What is the sensor supposed to connect to?

grif091
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Posted: March 08 2009 at 14:52 \| IP Logged

There are many serial to 1-wire interfaces. The VK011 mentioned in the initial post is one. The Com port is connected to the VK011, the 1-wire sensors are connected to the VK011. Perhaps that is what you are doing but the post I responded to sounded like you were trying to connect the 1-wire sensor directly to a com port.

EDIT: look at the qkit web site for the VK011. If you click on the small VK011 image you will get a larger image showing the serial connection on one edge of the card and screw terminals for the 4 supported 1-wire sensors.

Edited by grif091 - March 08 2009 at 15:02

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Lee G

judetf
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Posted: March 08 2009 at 16:22 \| IP Logged

I guess, after reading Spou's article, I thought that I could do it without a special interface... That as long as I could tap into my serial port and have a CAT5 cable coming out of it, that was all I needed to connect to the sensor.

Spou talks about using a "9097U-009 (DB9 plug), which is of RS-232, passive sort" to create the link between his cabling and the computer's serial port. I guess that device does something more than what the Cisco cable does. So I still have one more part to get, then, I guess: whether it's the VK011 or something like what Spou has.

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