newbie

Cool website! Thanks to all creating it.

I stumbled across the site via Google search regarding ‘best sensors’. I don’t remember the specific keywords. I’ve hunted through the site for about an hour and need to give up. There is a lot here. I apologize if my questions are out of place and/or answered elsewhere. Any pointers would be appreciated.

I’m interested in monitoring the weather in my greenhouse and outside. My focus on the ‘outside’ is primarily to deduce how well the greenhouse is working and when all the doors can be opened.

With this in mind, I’ve started looking into ways to collect temperature and moisture data, then store it on my computer. Sounds like a weather station to me… I’ve been looking at various bands of equipment (Oregon, La Crosse, Davis, 1-wire, etc) via the Internet, but the bottom line is quality sensors while reasonable replacements (they all break).

Is there someplace on the board where this is a topic?

Thanks!

Welcome to the Forum and I’m pleased that you like what you see. I’ve moved your question to a place that is probably more appropriate.

Weather stations come in a range of prices and features. Some of the things you need to consider are:

Features: Different units come with different sensors. Most (all?) systems have temp/humidity sensors. Some have an anemometer (for wind speed), wind direction, solar and UV sensors, barometric pressure, rain gauges. Some have shielding and fans for the temp/humidity sensors. You need to decide which features are essential, which would be nice to have and which aren’t needed at all. The more sensors you require, the more it’s likely to cost. Also if you want something like UV then there are only a limited nubmer of systems that support it.

Connection mechanism between the sensors and ‘console’: How far from your house/office is the greenhouse? Can you easily get a wire between the two? This will decide whether you need a wireless or wired system. Wireless tends to be more expensive than wired. Wireless sensors run off batteries and/or solar power, so you don’t need a seperate power source (you don’t for wired either).

Accuracy: Some systems might only be accurate to a couple of degrees centigrade and 1mm on the rain gauge. Others might be ten times more accurate. Decide how accurate you really need to be. For example, if you’re providing a formal public meteorological data service you need better accuracy than if you’re just doing it for a hobby. Just my opinion, but for monitoring your greenhouse you probably don’t need high accuracy. How accurate are your current thermometers…probably only accurate to a degree or so, which might mean you don’t need ultimate accuracy.

Frequency of update: Some units send data to the console more frequently than others. I think there’s one unit that only updates once every three minutes, which might be too long for you. However, updates every second might be overkill. Wired systems tend to update faster than wireless units and generally you’ll pay more for a system that updates more frequently.

Software: Do you want to connect the system to a PC? If so, the unit will need to have some form of PC connection, usually a serial port. Not all units have these! Some systems come with software, but as usual with ‘free’ software, it might not do what you need and you may need to buy an update to add the features you want. There is third party software around (for example Weather Display which supports dozens of different types of stations). Decide what you want to do…control things, upload data to a web site, view certain data on your PC screen? There’s a lot of different software to do lots of different things!

Price: They range from fairly cheap to very expensive (more than most people here can afford). The cheaper units aren’t abysmal though and if you want to dip a toe in the water to see how you get on, buying a cheap unit to experiment with before you decide on a more expensive unit might be worthwhile.

If you can give some answers to the above questions, I’m sure that the assembled masses will come up with some suggestions for you to look at more closely. I can’t comment too much on types of stations…I’ve only ever owned two, both Oregon Scientific (WM918 - wired and now a WMR928 - wireless). Both systems have worked well for me and I’ve never had a sensor fail in around 4 years of running both systems.

Hi mmmills and welcome to the forums.

You know, a weather station might just be overkill for what you want to do. I just saw some wireless temp/humidity sensors at Wal-Mart for $22 each. One outside the greenhouse (low and in the shade) and another in the greenhouse will probably do the trick.

Of course, don’t let me discourage you from buying a weather station. They are lots of fun and highly addictive!

After that you can get a webcam to check up on the greenhouse from inside and then you can… 8O

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

I’ve been looking at things on the market for a couple of weeks.

Let’s start with my current ‘sensors’. I can check an Internet weather station about 20 miles from here for a ‘current temperature.’ That’s my baseline. I only need to be within a degree or so.

My primary sensor is a digital cooking thermometer. It seems to be within a degree of the ‘true’ reported temperature. As far as I’m concerned, +/- one deg F is fine. Perhaps geography produces more than a 1 degree difference and the cooking thermometer is better than +/- 1 degree F.

Additionally, I’ve got 2 mechanical thermometers. They are the round dial and needle style things. One is 4 or 5 degrees high, the other 10 degrees low. As far as I’m concerned, they are useless.

My immediate need is an alarm that goes off if the greenhouse gets below 45 degrees F. There are a variety of ‘temperature alarm clocks’ (TAC) in the $20 to $40 price range that serve this purpose. These include a variety of ‘unknown’ brand names, GE, Emerson, La Crosse and Oregon Scientific. Some very cautionary reviews suggest both La Crosse and Oregon Scientific are fairly unreliable. They seem to be cute gifts. Sometimes they work for long periods of time, sometimes the sensors go bad in a few weeks. One guy said he bought two of these TACs and both failed him on the night of a freeze ( one battery dead, the other thermometer was inaccurate).

If you get two TACs, and watch to insure they are both accurate and both running, you ought to be doing ok, though. But, then you are out $80 and you don’t need two clocks. What you really need is one indoor ‘console’ which runs off household electric most of the time, but can run off a battery for 8 hours. You also need at least two sensors reporting the greenhouse temperature. Additionally, they need to be accurate and easy to replace when they go out (and they will all eventually do). The non-name brands don’t sell replacement sensors. La Crosse and Oregon Scientific sell replacements, but I’m cautious about their use.

By this time, the ‘temp alarm’ is starting to sound like a weather station. The other two manufacturer names I’ve come across are Davis and 1-wire. The Davis products seem highly recommended for quality instruments. 1-Wire stuff seems perfect for ‘system’ types, and I have no need of wireless components. As to accuracy of the 1-wire equipment, I have not heard.

That’s about where I’m at…

Thanks,

Mark