Triassic Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 I’d like to start logging temperature, humidity and CO2 in the new house. Having read a few previous posts, Some of you built your own loggers, I don’t fancy that, (never really understood electronics!). So, can anyone recommend something off the shelf? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 I use a usb logger to record/prove high temperatures in problem electrical panels. Like this: https://cpc.farnell.com/lascar/el-usb-lite/datalogger-usb-temp/dp/IN04739? Thinking you want something "more"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triassic Posted October 27, 2019 Author Share Posted October 27, 2019 16 minutes ago, Onoff said: I use a usb logger to record/prove high temperatures in problem electrical panels. Like this: https://cpc.farnell.com/lascar/el-usb-lite/datalogger-usb-temp/dp/IN04739? Thinking you want something "more"? The software it comes with is a bit old and not compatible with my PV?! Thanks for the suggestion thou, its the sort of thing I had in mind, something simple, plug and play! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 The problem is logging CO2 is expensive. But you really don't need to as RH is a good indicator, though not an accurate of actual CO2 PPM. Then there is how many areas you want to monitor. If you have MVHR, you can easily stick 4 sensors in the duct work and monitor the whole house and the external temperature. As for rolling your own, it really is not hard, and you can design it to get the data of in a format that you want, rather than what some spotty millennium thinks you want. Only about 15 things are needed. A Raspberry Pi Zero W 4 DHT22s Temp/RH sensors 4 Resistors An RTC (Real Time Clock). Memory Card Serial to USB cable PSU (Power Supply Unit) Wire Box to put it in I am sure one of us could knock you up an image for the memory card that will make it all work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike2016 Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 I got one of a batch of FooBots being used as part of a research project on ebay. I also wanted something off the shelf and not fiddly like the Raspberry Pi. Unfortunately they are no longer sold but are developing a next gen model, no idea of availability. Some second hard units are available on ebay from the Netherlands but a bit pricey @ £160 ea. USB powered. They can log to an app on your phone and the internet which is great for tracking activity. See the available measurements in the screenshot below. That's my bedroom CO2 I've focused on. It's certainly possible, depending on your budget.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpd Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 Seems so strange that this is an item people want but it’s not readily available of the shelf. There is no way I could go down the raspberry Pi route as I am just not capable in this department.... but would be happy to pay for one that was easy to set up and use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 The main problem is that decent CO2 sensors are still fairly expensive. I bought some surplus ones from the US, as a batch of 5, but even those were around £20 each, IIRC (their list price was around £80 I think). I have this display on the wall in the hall, which is a subset of all the data that's logged to a USB stick every 6 minutes. It's also a handy time reference, as it gets time from a GPS module mounted high up in the services room. GPS time is pretty accurate, and not hard to adjust in code to allow for daylight saving time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 How useful us this eCO2 sensor? https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/adafruit-sgp30-air-quality-sensor-breakout-voc-and-eco2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 2 hours ago, SteamyTea said: How useful us this eCO2 sensor? https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/adafruit-sgp30-air-quality-sensor-breakout-voc-and-eco2 Probably not very. Somewhere I have a hot plate oxide CO2 sensor, I'll try and dig it out. Main problems I found were drift, relatively high power consumption, a fair bit of temperature instability and not great at measuring CO2 levels below a couple of thousand ppm. The best sensors are the NDIR ones, that use the variation in absorption of a specific light wavelength to measure CO2 concentration. The ones I have are older versions of these: https://www.amphenol-sensors.com/en/telaire/co2/525-co2-sensor-modules/321-t6613 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Davies Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 My vAir temperature/humidity/CO₂, etc, sensor box (sadly not available any more) has a Figaro CDM7160 CO₂ sensor in it. I think just the CO₂ sensor was about €80 in one-off quantities then but they now seem to be £39 each which isn't so bad. The advantage these have over the cheaper ones is that they don't need calibrating periodically; if my understanding and recollection are correct they have some sort of internal reference path which can be used to calibrate themselves.. The cheaper ones either are uncalibrated or do their own calibration on the assumption that the CO₂ level gets down to 400ppm every couple of days which may not be valid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joth Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 Cross post from the other thread, I built my own using the £17 MH-Z19 : But I just noticed both OPs were after off-the-shelf options ? is there a "DIY CO2" topic somewhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickfromwales Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 Watching with interest as I have a client that we’re installing a wine / champagne store for in their upcoming new build and it needs monitoring. Client needs to be able to see it remotely ( as they don’t intend residing there all year round ) so WiFi accessible portal would be required. Off the shelf solution is the only option where I have to depart after installation as things need to be generic / industry recognised for 3rd party repair / replacement down the line. Temp and RH are the key requirements for this instance. Apparently dry corks are not good corks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonshine Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 10 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said: Watching with interest as I have a client that we’re installing a wine / champagne store for in their upcoming new build and it needs monitoring. Client needs to be able to see it remotely ( as they don’t intend residing there all year round ) so WiFi accessible portal would be required. Off the shelf solution is the only option where I have to depart after installation as things need to be generic / industry recognised for 3rd party repair / replacement down the line. Temp and RH are the key requirements for this instance. Apparently dry corks are not good corks It's not quite off the shelf but you could use a raspberry pi zero w and follow the guide below this will give you Wi-Fi access to the data remotely. https://pypi.org/project/mh-z19/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickfromwales Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 5 minutes ago, Moonshine said: It's not quite off the shelf but you could use a raspberry pi zero w and follow the guide below this will give you Wi-Fi access to the data remotely. https://pypi.org/project/mh-z19/ Thanks, but not generic enough to leave behind with a client. Coincidentally I bumped into a chap on the weekend at the NSBRC who fits cold rooms / wine / champagne rooms so I’m going to approach him to see if these monitoring systems are available off the shelf somewhere. I’m sure they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 22 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said: Watching with interest as I have a client that we’re installing a wine / champagne store for in their upcoming new build and it needs monitoring. Client needs to be able to see it remotely ( as they don’t intend residing there all year round ) so WiFi accessible portal would be required. You can get off the shelf stuff, and it is not as if money is the problem. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joth Posted February 3, 2020 Share Posted February 3, 2020 1 hour ago, Nickfromwales said: Thanks, but not generic enough to leave behind with a client. Coincidentally I bumped into a chap on the weekend at the NSBRC who fits cold rooms / wine / champagne rooms so I’m going to approach him to see if these monitoring systems are available off the shelf somewhere. I’m sure they are. I think one of these would look the part in a wine cellar, and has cloud based Wifi built in https://getawair.co.uk/products/awair-2nd-edition Specifications Dimensions Sensors Temperature -40 to 125° C +/- 0.2° C (+/- 0.36° F) Humidity 0 to 95% +/- 2%p CO2 0 to 4000 ppm +/- 75ppm Chemicals (VOCs) 0 to 2014 ppb Dust 0 to 500 μg/m3 System Requirements Wi-Fi Connection Smartphone or tablet with support for Bluetooth 4.0, running iOS (8 or later) and Android (Jelly Bean 4.3 or later) Free Awair account Wireless Working Wi-Fi connection: 802.11 b/g/n @ 2.4GHz Bluetooth 4.0 Power 100~240V AC, 50/60Hz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dreadnaught Posted February 4, 2020 Share Posted February 4, 2020 @Nickfromwales: https://www.imore.com/best-homekit-humidity-sensors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gc100 Posted April 18, 2020 Share Posted April 18, 2020 On 27/10/2019 at 18:32, Jeremy Harris said: The main problem is that decent CO2 sensors are still fairly expensive. I bought some surplus ones from the US, as a batch of 5, but even those were around £20 each, IIRC (their list price was around £80 I think). I have this display on the wall in the hall, which is a subset of all the data that's logged to a USB stick every 6 minutes. It's also a handy time reference, as it gets time from a GPS module mounted high up in the services room. GPS time is pretty accurate, and not hard to adjust in code to allow for daylight saving time. That looks great. Did you make it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted April 18, 2020 Share Posted April 18, 2020 28 minutes ago, gc100 said: That looks great. Did you make it? Yes, it's home made. I have a network of sensors around the house that feed data up to a box in the services room, and that puts all the data together, along with the GPS derived date and time (corrected for BST as required) and spits some of it back downstairs to that display in the hall. Perhaps the most used parts of that display are the outside temperature and the date/time, as the clock is always spot on (in essence it's just a repeater for the atomic clocks in the satellites). The data from all the other sensors (mainly temperature at various places, including in the slab, under the slab, water temperatures in pipes and the buffer tank, the ASHP flow temperature, etc) is logged every 6 minutes, so I can go back and see how things are behaving. I have to say that the novelty of analysing all this data wears off after a while, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gc100 Posted April 18, 2020 Share Posted April 18, 2020 (edited) 3 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said: Yes, it's home made. I have a network of sensors around the house that feed data up to a box in the services room, and that puts all the data together, along with the GPS derived date and time (corrected for BST as required) and spits some of it back downstairs to that display in the hall. Perhaps the most used parts of that display are the outside temperature and the date/time, as the clock is always spot on (in essence it's just a repeater for the atomic clocks in the satellites). The data from all the other sensors (mainly temperature at various places, including in the slab, under the slab, water temperatures in pipes and the buffer tank, the ASHP flow temperature, etc) is logged every 6 minutes, so I can go back and see how things are behaving. I have to say that the novelty of analysing all this data wears off after a while, though. Thats great though. I really want at least an outdoor temp sensor, and the CO2 would be good to know. What 'box' did you use or is it a home made solution using a PI or something? Edited April 18, 2020 by gc100 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted April 18, 2020 Share Posted April 18, 2020 I used a bunch of PIC microcontrollers, bus powered (as they only need a mA or two each) with each doing some pre-processing of local sensor data, converting it to ASCII and squirting it down a multi-drop serial link that connects all the sensors. There's a PIC in the master box that sends the collated data back out to a local display upstairs (that shows 8 different temperature sensors), drives the display in the hall and also does the data logging. All told there are six microcontrollers around the house all talking to each other to keep things going. The big advantages over something like a Raspberry Pi are the low power (the whole things draws about 1/10th of the power needed to run a Pi) and the cost (PIC microcontrollers cost pennies, rather than pounds). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gc100 Posted April 18, 2020 Share Posted April 18, 2020 (edited) Very impressive. I know nothing of PIC, also I have an A in A level electronics many years ago, and a years worth of Electrical Eng degree I've not really looked at it since. However I could program an PI easily so probably my best route forward for this, even though it would cost more no doubt, but at least I'd understand it more! Thanks for the info - very interesting. Edited April 18, 2020 by gc100 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted April 19, 2020 Share Posted April 19, 2020 This RPi based CO2 logger claims to come ready to log.. https://www.co2-logger.com/product/co2-logger-development-kit/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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