[pm-h] Remote Temperature Monitoring

[John Ellyson]

Mike,

I got a bit busy at work or else I would have responded sooner.  (Yeah, I
know.  Strange idea to actually do some work while at work.)

Anyways, I'm doing something like this for our lab at work.  Unfortunately,
I probably can't share my Perl code (employer's intellectual property rights
situation), but I'll try to share the concept and whatever else I can
without getting into trouble with my employer.

The device that I used is the Digi Watchport/H sensor since we already are
using those for some other work.  If you're not interested in the humidity
readings, you might find the Watchport/T sensor to be more inline with your
needs.  The link below is for more details from the manufacturer.

http://www.digi.com/products/wirelessdropinnetworking/sensors/din-watchport-sensors.jsp#models

In my implementation, I set up 4 of these sensors in each of the A/C zones
for our lab.  I connected all four of them to a single system running
Windows.  On that system, I set up a Perl script that connected to the
sensors using the Win32::SerialPort and used Net::EasyTCP to set up a
"telnet" server.  The basic behavior is that when a "client" connects, this
script would:
  1) Connect to a temperature/humidty sensor
  2) Retrieve a reading
  3) Sending reading to client
  4) Repeat steps 1-3 for remaining sensors and then close the connection

I set this script (actually I bundled it into a self contained executable
using PerlApp from ActiveState) as a scheduled task to run when the OS comes
up.  Eventually, I probably should update the script to be run as a service.

There may be better and/or cheaper methods of accomplishing the same thing,
but that's what I used.  Let me know if you have any questions about my
implementation.

Good luck on getting things set up!

John Ellyson

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Mike Flannigan <mikeflan at att.net> wrote:

>
> On 7/23/2010 7:56 AM, Mike Flannigan wrote:
>
>> I'm looking to remotely monitor a digital thermometer
>> connected to a computer.  The computer I plan to
>> use has USB and Serial.  I have to use Windows,
>> but only because I couldn't get Unix loaded on this
>> old computer.
>>
>> I need to export the temp to a location 1,000 miles
>> away.  Haven't decided if I'm using the web, FTP,
>> Telnet, or what for the data transfer.  I want flexibility
>> where I can write the Perl program to do what I need
>> to do.
>>
>> I'm sending this to you guys in case one of you
>> has already grappled with this.  I can see on the
>> internet that there are about 1,000 options.
>> Please call me or e-mail the list if you can help
>> me decide which way to go with this.  Buying
>> something from a local store might be my
>> best option.  I plan to go to EPO and Fryes
>> today to see what is available there.
>>
>>
>> I'm think this one is what I need, but I'm to
>> lazy to do all this work:
>> http://www.riccibitti.com/pc_therm.htm
>>
>>
>> This one seem really good:
>> http://www.spiderplant.com/hlt/index.html
>> but that first link says they are out of business.
>>
>>
>> Do these USB powered units work?
>>
>> http://www.tomtop.com/pc-laptop-usb-powered-thermometer-temperature-sensor-data-log.html
>>
>>
>> http://www.lancos.com/webtherm.html
>>
>> http://www.pcsensor.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=15
>>
>> A very interesting one:
>> http://www.maxim-ic.com/products/ibutton/products/ibuttons.cfm
>>
>>
>> This one will probably work, given the price:
>>
>> http://www.americanweather.com/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=48&osCsid=686d544982fe2f42e47e0dfe239aca47
>>
>>
>>
>> Talk on a blog:
>>
>> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mcreasy/archive/2004/07/19/187554.aspx
>>
>>
>> Mike Flannigan
>> 281-286-6869
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> If EPO or Fry's have these products, they
> don't know that they have them.
>
> I'll probably just go with a cheap TemperNTC.
> It's a cheap device of dubious quality with
> very bad software, but I can probably get it
> to work for me.  If you do use this thing on
> Windows, you probably need one of these
> software upgrades:
> http://www.alsgh.com/utac/
> http://www.play-time.demon.co.uk/ThermoHID/index.html#download
>
> It appears the Chinese manufacturer has
> not gotten the thing in good working order yet,
> so there is a lot of junk hardware out there.
> In fact, I think it's probably all junk, but some
> people have gotten it to work to some degree.
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
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>
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