Re: Re: Room temperature measuring system

["Martyn Wendon" <martynwendon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Pete,

IMHO the Quasar unit is a bit of a beginners introduction to Dallas 1-wire
sensors - I started out with one and added more as I needed more
temperature
sensors, eventually running out of COM ports (4 Quasar units).

I recently changed to something a bit more advanced in an
"HA7NET"
(http://www.embeddeddatasystems.com/HA7Net--Ethernet-1-Wire-Host-Adapter_p_22.html)
which is an ethernet enabled 1-wire interface (they also do a non-ethernet
version).  I went for the ethernet version as I wanted to not rely on any
physical connection to a PC.

It's leaps and bounds better than the Quasar units as it supports more
sensors (both in  terms of type and quantity) and has 3 separate 1-wire
buses.

So far I've wired one of the ports into a 24-port CAT5 patch panel using
bus
type wiring so that each port can then be patched into my CAT5 cabling that
goes around the house to 20 odd temperature sensors.  At the remote ends I
use a mixture of either temperature sensors soldered onto standard CAT5
patch cables, or crimped into RJ45 plugs, or just screwed into choc-block
on
the ends of the CAT5.

Works well so far, it has a web interface and there's plugins for things
like HomeSeer and HouseBot.  I use mine with a simple Perl script that
polls
for the reading from each temperature sensor every minute and outputs it
using the xAP HA Protocol where it's then picked up in xAP Floorplan for
display and data storage.


Hope this helps!

Martyn




----- Original Message -----
From: "Pete Church" <yahoo@xxxxxxx>
To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 7:04 PM
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Re: Room temperature measuring system


Hi,



I'm just looking into the same issue as I want to keep a track of the
temperatures around my holiday home to try and work out the most efficient
heating regime whilst vacated.  I'm looking at about 16 sensors which would
imply 4 of these Quasar units. However I thought that the whole point of
1-wire was that they worked as a bus and you should be able to link them
together and just have one interface that polls all devices.



Dallas (or Maxim-IC as they are now) do a couple of interfaces (DS9097U,
DS9490R) that appear to do the same thing as the Quasar one but can work
with more than 4 sensors and cost about the same.



http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/2983



Am I missing something about the Quasar one?



www.Audon.co.uk sell the Dallas ones for c.£25 as well.



Any advice/comments gratefully received.



Thanks



Pete





_____

From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Paul Gordon
Sent: 15 December 2009 22:02
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ukha_d] Re: Room temperature measuring system





OUCH! - that's a heck of a premium to pay just to have it wireless... - how
many sensors do you get? - how many does it support maximum?

The Quasar kit costs about £27 (built & tested), and sensors are
about £4
each. (I have it on good authority that the DS18S20 sensors can be had a
lot
cheaper, and in some cases can be got for free if you request
"samples"
direct from Dallas)

Even if you pay full price for 4 sensors, that gets you a fully-loaded
4-zone temp probe for less than £45, and all you need to run it is a
few of
the cores from a CAT5 cable to each measured location... - an entire 305m
drum of CAT5 cable can be had for about £35-£40 - and since it
only uses a
maximum of 3 cores, you can STILL use the remainder of the pairs for other
purposes if required, - and that could include 100MB Ethernet, which only
requires 2 pairs (Gb Ethernet needs all 4 pairs IIRC)...

If 4 zones isn't enough, just duplicate the above, - as long as you have
enough RS232 COM ports to connect to, you can run as many of these as you
like for £45 a time (I run 2 of them to give 8 zones into Homeseer, -
although they're offline just now as I've changed my serial port server
&
need to engineer an alternate power supply for them).

Still, you pays yer money & you takes yer choice...

Paul G.

-----Original Message-----
From: ukha_d@yahoogroups. <mailto:ukha_d%40yahoogroups.com>
com
[mailto:ukha_d@yahoogroups. <mailto:ukha_d%40yahoogroups.com>
com] On Behalf
Of
jabberwockpl
Sent: 15 December 2009 21:18
To: ukha_d@yahoogroups. <mailto:ukha_d%40yahoogroups.com>
com
Subject: [ukha_d] Re: Room temperature measuring system

> On a side note - I'll guarantee that you'll wish you put more Cat5 in
in
the future to each room - even if it's left coiled in an accessible wall,
you'll be grateful you did!

Duly noted... I'll check with my installers if it's still possible. I got
four connections for the living room and the work/study room, one
connection
for kid's room, guestroom and our bedroom.

I found out that Oregon Scientific system might be what I need - GBP 190
for
the station and GBP 29 for transmitters is not exactly dirt cheap, but I
guess it will pass SWIMBO's inspection...

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