Hello,

2009 New Year resolution is to implement a Heatbank, and also solar HW.

Ahead of this I am thinking of a project to put together some kind of data
acquisition system for heating related parameters.

I would like to be able monitor:

* Various temperatures (eg indoors, outdoors, hot tank x 2, solar
input/output temps etc )
* Digital events (thermostat demand, boiler on/off times)
* Pulse trains (eg possible flowmeters)

This could be autonomous or possibly PC based (I have a Windows Home Server
that is permanently running). In either case I would like to be able to get
the data into some kind of tabular form for analysis every now and then.

I want to do this on a sensible budget. There seem to be several possible
approaches:

* Use "Home Automation" components such http://www.idratek.com/
..............But expensive and I don't actually want to automate or control
anything.
* Use home weather station components such as available from
http://www.oregonscientific.co.uk/ ...............But all rather bespoke and
again pricey.
* Use something like the µChameleon from
http://www.starting-point-systems.com/ ...............Appears to be just
the job hardware-wise and sensibly priced (about 50 quid on eBay) BUT I
do not want to write software if I can avoid it. I am emailing these guys
anyway to see if there is 3rd party software support that may be
interesting.

Q. Is anybody out there doing this kind of thing? If so how? Any other
ideas?


david

In article ,
"Vortex3" writes:
Hello,

2009 New Year resolution is to implement a Heatbank, and also solar HW.

Ahead of this I am thinking of a project to put together some kind of data
acquisition system for heating related parameters.

I would like to be able monitor:

* Various temperatures (eg indoors, outdoors, hot tank x 2, solar
input/output temps etc )
* Digital events (thermostat demand, boiler on/off times)
* Pulse trains (eg possible flowmeters)

This could be autonomous or possibly PC based (I have a Windows Home Server
that is permanently running). In either case I would like to be able to get
the data into some kind of tabular form for analysis every now and then.

Q. Is anybody out there doing this kind of thing? If so how? Any other
ideas?

I rolled my own about 8 years ago. At the time, I was out of the
country a lot of the time and wanted to keep an eye on things
remotely, and turn the heating back on ready when when I arrived
home. I've done this in 2 houses now.

To give an example, here's a log (of the heating related events)
for a period when heating is in setback mode (12C downstairs,
11C upstairs). There's also monitoring of things like fridge and
freezer temperatures, but these generate lots of output as the
compressors cycle on and off, so I've stripped them out here.
(The Bedroom 3 and Outside readings are just recorded for
information, whereas the Downstairs and Upstairs readings are
controlling the heating demand in their respective heating
zones to maintain the setback temperatures.)

13:39:04 Temperature - Downstairs 12.5
13:49:46 Temperature - Downstairs 12.0
14:07:42 Temperature - Outside 4.0
14:55:43 Temperature - Outside 3.5
14:57:35 Temperature - Downstairs 11.5
14:57:37 Output Downstairs Heating Demand ON
14:57:56 Input Boiler Burner ON
15:09:31 Temperature - Downstairs 12.0
15:09:33 Output Downstairs Heating Demand OFF
15:09:34 Input Boiler Burner OFF
15:31:41 Temperature - Bedroom 3 11.0
16:14:15 Temperature - Outside 3.0
16:15:23 Temperature - Outside 3.5
16:21:23 Temperature - Outside 3.0
16:52:52 Temperature - Downstairs 11.5
16:52:54 Output Downstairs Heating Demand ON
16:53:12 Input Boiler Burner ON
17:05:06 Temperature - Downstairs 12.0
17:05:08 Output Downstairs Heating Demand OFF
17:05:09 Input Boiler Burner OFF
17:30:13 Temperature - Outside 2.5
18:09:28 Temperature - Bedroom 3 10.5
18:42:13 Temperature - Downstairs 11.5
18:42:15 Output Downstairs Heating Demand ON
18:42:33 Input Boiler Burner ON
18:55:08 Temperature - Downstairs 12.0
18:55:10 Output Downstairs Heating Demand OFF
18:55:10 Input Boiler Burner OFF
19:01:13 Temperature - Bedroom 3 11.0
19:25:59 Temperature - Bedroom 3 10.5
20:28:48 Temperature - Downstairs 11.5
20:28:50 Output Downstairs Heating Demand ON
20:29:08 Input Boiler Burner ON
20:33:33 Temperature - Upstairs 10.5
20:33:37 Output Upstairs Heating Demand ON
20:39:09 Temperature - Bedroom 3 11.0
20:40:33 Temperature - Upstairs 11.0
20:40:36 Output Upstairs Heating Demand OFF
20:43:05 Temperature - Downstairs 12.0
20:43:07 Output Downstairs Heating Demand OFF
20:43:07 Input Boiler Burner OFF
20:43:38 Temperature - Bedroom 3 11.5
20:49:28 Temperature - Bedroom 3 12.0
20:49:51 Temperature - Bedroom 3 11.5
20:52:07 Temperature - Outside 2.0

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
news:49609e87$0$511[snip]

Q. Is anybody out there doing this kind of thing? If so how? Any
other
ideas?

I rolled my own about 8 years ago. At the time, I was out of the
country a lot of the time and wanted to keep an eye on things
remotely, and turn the heating back on ready when when I arrived
home. I've done this in 2 houses now.

[snip]

20:49:51 Temperature - Bedroom 3 11.5
20:52:07 Temperature - Outside 2.0

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]


Can you tell me more about the hardware. I'm curious!

In article ,
"Vortex3" writes:

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
news:49609e87$0$511[snip]

Q. Is anybody out there doing this kind of thing? If so how? Any
other
ideas?

I rolled my own about 8 years ago. At the time, I was out of the
country a lot of the time and wanted to keep an eye on things
remotely, and turn the heating back on ready when when I arrived
home. I've done this in 2 houses now.

[snip]

20:49:51 Temperature - Bedroom 3 11.5
20:52:07 Temperature - Outside 2.0

Can you tell me more about the hardware. I'm curious!

It looks like it's the sensing you're interested in, rather
more than the control.

For the temperature sensing, I use the Dallas/Maxim DS18S20
1-wire sensor. It's a digital sensor and bus interface combined,
so you can string a whole load of them on a single data bus around
the house and address them individually. They look like tiny
transistors, but are actually 3 terminal IC's. They have a
parasitic power mode where you can power them from the data
line, in which case you just need a single twisted pair to
interconnect them all (although parasitic power mode isn't
recommended for higher temperatures as they draw more power
at high temperature and may run out of stored power when
sending back the data).

You need something to interface the Dallas 1-wire to a PC or
whatever. I use the modules built by Peter H. Anderson
http://www.phanderson.com/ which provide a serial port
interface to the devices, and simply return the temperature
in °C from each DS18S20 it finds on the bus.
Other people also make 1-wire interface cards/modules.

You can obtain temperature to 0.5°C resolution from the
DS18S20 chips. They are actually significantly more accurate
internally, but it's quite a bit more complicated to read the
extra digits, and most 1-wire interfaces don't do so.
There's additional functionality in the DS18S20 which I don't
use, such as the NVRAM and the ability to program it to
perform the role of a simple thermostat.

The serial interface connects to an always-on PC which does
continuous monitoring and control of the house. The software
is my own and has grown over the years. As someone else said,
I wouldn't run this sort of thing under Windows. It's run under
Solaris x86 (unix), where uptime is limited only by power cuts,
which is typically in excess of 2 years, and if anything else
were to go wrong, I don't end up stuck with a non-functioning
box showing a blue screen of death when I'm 8000 miles away.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

The serial interface connects to an always-on PC which does
continuous monitoring and control of the house. The software
is my own and has grown over the years. As someone else said,
I wouldn't run this sort of thing under Windows. It's run under
Solaris x86 (unix), where uptime is limited only by power cuts,
which is typically in excess of 2 years, and if anything else
were to go wrong, I don't end up stuck with a non-functioning
box showing a blue screen of death when I'm 8000 miles away.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Interesting. Thanks for that.

I'm going to stick with analog inputs for now the more I read about these
µChameleon thingies the more curious I become....so I am definitely going to
pick one up.

Will also get some LM35's (http://www.national.com/ds/LM/LM35.pdf) and some
instrumentation wire....hopefully will be able to get some logging going
pretty quickly.

I have a feeling that rediscovering BASIC will keep me off the streets.

David

On Sun, 4 Jan 2009 10:56:07 -0000, "Vortex3"
wrote:

Hello,

2009 New Year resolution is to implement a Heatbank, and also solar HW.

Ahead of this I am thinking of a project to put together some kind of data
acquisition system for heating related parameters.

I would like to be able monitor:

* Various temperatures (eg indoors, outdoors, hot tank x 2, solar
input/output temps etc )
* Digital events (thermostat demand, boiler on/off times)
* Pulse trains (eg possible flowmeters)

This could be autonomous or possibly PC based (I have a Windows Home Server
that is permanently running). In either case I would like to be able to get
the data into some kind of tabular form for analysis every now and then.

I want to do this on a sensible budget. There seem to be several possible
approaches:

* Use "Home Automation" components such http://www.idratek.com/
.............But expensive and I don't actually want to automate or control
anything.
* Use home weather station components such as available from
http://www.oregonscientific.co.uk/ ...............But all rather bespoke and
again pricey.
* Use something like the µChameleon from
http://www.starting-point-systems.com/ ...............Appears to be just
the job hardware-wise and sensibly priced (about 50 quid on eBay) BUT I
do not want to write software if I can avoid it. I am emailing these guys
anyway to see if there is 3rd party software support that may be
interesting.

Q. Is anybody out there doing this kind of thing? If so how? Any other
ideas?


david


It depends on how practical you are, whether you can assemble
rudimentary electronic circuits, do soldering, that kind of thing. Or
whether you are all fingers and thumbs when it comes to DIY. I built a
solar water heater last "summer", using copper tubing from B&Q painted
matt black and mounted inside a large wooden box, also painted matt
black. On a really hot day I could easily get enough water for a
shower by later afternoon. Trouble was, and the reason I placed
"summer" in quotes, we got very, very few days like that in 2008!
Hopefully, 2009 will be warmer.

The size of this "panel" I constructed is about 1m x 0.8m, but it
could be made much larger, or more panels made, plus more tubing. The
heat is there for the asking on hot days! Leave a water hose on the
lawn for a while, then turn it on and feel the water coming out. It
will often be more than hand hot. In the states they put coils of hose
on the garage roof specifically to heat water for domestic use.

Anyway, as I was talking about electronics, you may wonder what this
has to do with a DIY solar water heater. Well, the principle by which
it operates is the thermo-syphon principle. Classic cars with no water
pump are a good example. The hot water would rise and circulation
established. However, as the car manufacturers found, I also found
that a small pump would boost the circulation a tad, so I bought one
from a ship's chandler (it's the kind that is used to pump out
bilges). It's only about 10cm long and 3cm in diameter. But I couldn't
just switch it on and forget it. So I bought a timeswitch kit from
Maplin that allows the time to be controlled very precisely. You can
set DIP switches on the circuit board for the switch to come on for
precisely 20 seconds every 15 minutes. I believe you ~can~ buy
switches like that commercially but they are very expensive compared
to your typical domestic timeswitch bought from Wilkinson or B&Q.

Now, if you are "in tune" with all the above, you are in the right
frame of mind for experimentation! If not, I would get a man in to do
it. That is likely going to cost a great deal of money, however. How
long will you need to run the equipment before it has paid for itself?

MM

On Sun, 4 Jan 2009 10:56:07 -0000, Vortex3 wrote:

* Use something like the Chameleon from
http://www.starting-point-systems.com/ ...............Appears to be
just the job hardware-wise and sensibly priced (about 50 quid on eBay)

That certainly covers a good number of digital and analog IO for your PC
but I wonder if it's wise using a PC as the control system, particulary
one doing other things as well. Fine for non-critical monitoring and
production of stats. For control I'd be tempted to look at a PLC of some
sort.

BUT I do not want to write software if I can avoid it.

You are looking at a bespoke system so I don't think you'll be able to
avoid doing the software as well, the chances of someone else having done
just what you want are remote. There might be something similar that has
been published that you could modify does that count as "writing
software"?

You can get commercial solar controllers but I know very little about
them. Having data available must be a fairly common request so I'd expect
to find some of them with data outputs, maybe only at the top of the
ranges though.

--
Cheers
Dave.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.net...
On Sun, 4 Jan 2009 10:56:07 -0000, Vortex3 wrote:

* Use something like the Chameleon from
http://www.starting-point-systems.com/ ...............Appears to be
just the job hardware-wise and sensibly priced (about 50 quid on eBay)

That certainly covers a good number of digital and analog IO for your PC
but I wonder if it's wise using a PC as the control system, particulary
one doing other things as well. Fine for non-critical monitoring and
production of stats. For control I'd be tempted to look at a PLC of some
sort.

BUT I do not want to write software if I can avoid it.

You are looking at a bespoke system so I don't think you'll be able to
avoid doing the software as well, the chances of someone else having done
just what you want are remote. There might be something similar that has
been published that you could modify does that count as "writing
software"?

You can get commercial solar controllers but I know very little about
them. Having data available must be a fairly common request so I'd expect
to find some of them with data outputs, maybe only at the top of the
ranges though.

--
Cheers
Dave.


Hello Dave (and MM)


I don't think I was sufficiently clear.

My intention is to use a commercial off the shelf heatbank; solar bits and
controls. Probable suppliers a

DPS for the heatbank (GX family) www.heatweb.com
www.navitron.org.uk for the solar components and controls.

This will be a self-install some time after Easter.

I most certainly do not want to have a PC involved in the control. Just to
acquire a bunch of data!!!! and hopefully assist me in measuring the
efficiency and tuning the overall setup. My experiences wiith Windows media
Center have taught me absolutely not to rely on anything with Windows for
domestic applications.

From the web site the µChameleon from www.starting-point-systems.com would
appear to have some autonomous capability....and even do some control....but
that MIGHT be for phase 2!

To be honest I think I'm going to buy one of these Chameleon things and see
if I can rediscover my programming skills (last used 0.25 centuries ago).

I just downloaded Microsoft Visual Basic Express (free would you believe:
http://www.microsoft.com/express/vb/ ). If I can make the hardware do what
is claimed with this then I think that would be a good start! But I think I
need to consult with a Software geek friend of mine to make progress.

David

On Sun, 4 Jan 2009 12:56:09 -0000, Vortex3 wrote:

From the web site the Chameleon from www.starting-point-systems.com
would appear to have some autonomous capability....

I didn't look that closely but if it can be made to store readings and be
kicked into spewing them out when a host computer asks for 'em that would
be useful. Saves having to have a PC on logging the data and the risk of
gaps if(when) that PC crashes.

As for programming my server is Linux based and I'd be using
Perl/PHP/GNUPlot.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Sun, 4 Jan 2009 12:56:09 -0000, Vortex3 wrote:

From the web site the Chameleon from www.starting-point-systems.com
would appear to have some autonomous capability....

I didn't look that closely but if it can be made to store readings and be
kicked into spewing them out when a host computer asks for 'em that would
be useful. Saves having to have a PC on logging the data and the risk of
gaps if(when) that PC crashes.

As for programming my server is Linux based and I'd be using
Perl/PHP/GNUPlot.

Whatever you do, just bear in mind the system will be running long
after today's computers are gone. hopefully for several decades, and
you need to cater for hardware to run it for that long. There are a
few possible ways to do that, just dont overlook it.


NT

I most certainly do not want to have a PC involved in the control. Just to
acquire a bunch of data!!!! and hopefully assist me in measuring the
efficiency and tuning the overall setup.

I have been doing some data collection for a few weeks to tweak our (fairly
standard) DHW.
I started with the windows program from he-
http://www.elektroniikka.org/thermom...ge=screenshots
which uses some DS18B20 temperature sensors (from Farnell) and a simple
5-component interface to a standard RS232 serial port (details also on the
site).

I have 5 sensors connected - the advantage being that only 1 wire (ok 2
including ground) is required from the PC to the sensors. I used some old
network coax.

--
Geo

"Vortex3" wrote in message
...
Hello,

2009 New Year resolution is to implement a Heatbank, and also solar HW.

Ahead of this I am thinking of a project to put together some kind of
data
acquisition system for heating related parameters.

I would like to be able monitor:

* Various temperatures (eg indoors, outdoors, hot tank x 2, solar
input/output temps etc )
* Digital events (thermostat demand, boiler on/off times)
* Pulse trains (eg possible flowmeters)

This could be autonomous or possibly PC based (I have a Windows Home
Server
that is permanently running). In either case I would like to be able to
get
the data into some kind of tabular form for analysis every now and then.

I want to do this on a sensible budget. There seem to be several possible
approaches:

* Use "Home Automation" components such http://www.idratek.com/
.............But expensive and I don't actually want to automate or
control
anything.
* Use home weather station components such as available from
http://www.oregonscientific.co.uk/ ...............But all rather bespoke
and
again pricey.
* Use something like the µChameleon from
http://www.starting-point-systems.com/ ...............Appears to be just
the job hardware-wise and sensibly priced (about 50 quid on eBay) BUT I
do not want to write software if I can avoid it. I am emailing these guys
anyway to see if there is 3rd party software support that may be
interesting.

Q. Is anybody out there doing this kind of thing? If so how? Any
other
ideas?


david



Like others who have replied, I monitor temperatures at various points in my
house (garden, kitchen, hot water cylinder top, central heating primary
loop, etc) using some Maxim DS1621sensors. They cost about £4 each from
Farnell, and you'll need to build a small circuit costing about £10 to
interface them to a PC's serial port. Some example links:
http://www.riccibitti.com/pc_therm.htm
http://www.sgurr.co.uk/nailsea/
http://www.sgurr.co.uk/lundycam/