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Resources for “Remote Temperature Monitoring with Linux”

Issue 144

From Issue #144
April 2006

Feb 22, 2006  By Steven M. Lapinskas
 in
Resources for the print article.

University Linux Page: www.documatrix-usa.com

Excel spreadsheet for Steinhart-Hart equation: www.ysitemperature.com/tech-docs-sandh.html

Digital Multimeters with Serial Port Interface

Jameco Electronics—METEX brand multimeter source: www.jameco.com

Marlin P. Jones Associates, Inc. —UNI-TREND TECHNOLOGY brand multimeter source: www.mpja.com/productview.asp?product=14311+TE

Extech Instruments Corporation—MultiPro brand multimeter source: www.extech.com/instrument/products/alpha/MP510_520_530.html

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Another approach

sarunas's picture
Submitted by sarunas on Mon, 03/27/2006 - 10:24.

An interesting article as it touches on fundamentals.

When we needed to monitor temperature in our server room I used something that involved less R&D (on my part): semiconductor temperature sensors on 1-wire bus connected via adapter to the serial port on one of the Linux machines. Sensors like DS18S20 have more than adequate accuracy (+/-0.5°C) and temperature range (-55°C to +125°C).

It is relatively easy to assemble sensors and adapters yourself and there is plenty of info available (http://www.digitemp.com/documentation.shtml). There are also ready modules available (http://www.ibuttonlink.com/). Software to scan the bus and take readings is also free and, for example, available as a Debian package 'digitemp'.

Sarunas Burdulis

Great Article

Larry DeVries's picture
Submitted by Larry DeVries (not verified) on Wed, 03/22/2006 - 14:15.

Steven,

I was very pleased to see your article on remote temperature monitoring with Linux. I appreciate solutions to real world engineering problems.

I had a functional but unused Compaq Armada laptop (82MB RAM maxed out) and, following your instructions, was able to put University Linux on it even though it is running Win2000 OS. I used a Utility Disk v5.04 floppy previously made for the System Commander 2000 program I have on this laptop to boot into DOS and install UL. UL seems to work fine so far although I have not completed all of your project steps.

My next step is to Telnet into this laptop using my Dell Latitude C800 laptop now on the same wire network. I downloaded Putty. I need to get the permissions in UL correct.

After reading your article my interest would be to go directly to a wireless application using your concept. Existing wireless components are on the market from suppliers such as >> http://www.pointsix.com/cgi-bin/PointSix.cgi?Point_Sensors for various kinds of sensors, receivers, transmitters. (I am in no way connected to this company, just an example). Any experience with wireless?

For a future article - in a series(?) for Linux Journal - I would like to see a description of wireless components integrated with your Linux & UL solution.

Also, under the "when will we have more and better" aspect of any engineering project I would then suggest a next iteration to include multiple sensors (of different types) and a more sophisticated monitoring software to handle a real world application of multiple types of sensors and monitoring of multiple sensors of each type.

Thanks!!

Switching device

anonymous's picture
Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 03/12/2006 - 17:37.

Good article. Can you recommend a switching device for multiple inputs? I've had no luck finding anything designed for multimeters.

Thanks.

loved your article in 06Apr issue

bob findlay's picture
Submitted by bob findlay (not verified) on Thu, 03/02/2006 - 07:41.

Loved your article.

I've been playing with similar temperature monitoring/control applications that you alluded to in your article using a deeply embedded appliance produced by IO anywhere Inc.

The API to this box is open source and there is a demo5.tcl in the package below that you might want to check out:

http://members.allstream.net/~fcsoft/ioanywhere/windowsHowTo.html

Although it is setup to run under Windows, it is a simple matter of commenting out the c: lines and in the environment variable lines to get it to run under Linux.

bob