Solar Instrumentation / Data Collection

Posted by Morris Dovey on February 17, 2011, 2:07 pm

Enough people have asked (here and elsewhere) that I've put together a
web page to get folks started:

http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Misc/Instrumentation/

I welcome suggestions, photos, etc if anyone cares to see
improvements to what I've provided.

I have no connection to either of the companies mentioned (except as a
satisfied customer).

--
Morris Dovey
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/
PGP Key ID EBB1E70E

Posted by Jim Wilkins on February 17, 2011, 2:39 pm

Thanks, bookmarked.

I've about half given up on automated data collection and gone back to
the old clipboard, since stand-alone displays are much cheaper. I have
a Radio Shack wireless thermometer for air temperature and humidity
inside and out, and just found a cheap used 5-channel thermocouple
display to monitor the wood stove and pots cooking on it from
upstairs.

After recording lots of measurements I've found that the only
important ones are the start and end values, which give how fast the
house cools overnight, the amount of firewood I need for a year and
how long a battery will run this laptop.

jsw

Posted by daestrom on February 17, 2011, 10:47 pm

On 2/17/2011 9:07 AM, Morris Dovey wrote:

Yeah, I second the recommendation for 1-wire stuff. Had my last house
instrumented with temperatures all over the place (including heating
unit and drain-water heat recovery heat-exchanger).

Only been in this one for about three months, but that's on my 'to do'
list again :-)

daestrom

Posted by Jim Wilkins on February 28, 2011, 8:03 pm

I just received an order of thermocouples and connectors direct from
Omega at a lower price than from distributors like Newark; $ each for
male and female type K connectors, $5 for 25' of AWG 30 glass-braid t/
c wire.
http://www.omega.com/toc_asp/sectionSC.asp?section=G&book=temperature

jsw

Posted by Morris Dovey on February 28, 2011, 10:41 pm

On 2/28/2011 2:03 PM, Jim Wilkins wrote:

I've been wandering through their web pages for the past hour - some
nice looking stuff there.

For the benefit of people like me who've never used thermocouples, what
do we need to collect temperature readings in a PC? (I'm guessing that
bare thermocouples and some 30ga wire aren't all that's needed, and I
don't know enough to appreciate how/why "glass-braid t/c wire" is a good
thing.)

I /really/ liked the wireless capability! :-)

--
Morris Dovey
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/
PGP Key ID EBB1E70E