Kitmans Temperature monitor 2.0

Kitman

Full time elf
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
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395
Location
Munno Para
Well I have certainly started early this year with adding features to my Raspberry Pi setup and my temperature monitoring.


As some of you know I added the ability to monitor the temperature of my control boxes by adding some 1 wire temperature sensors to each control box and connecting these up to the raspberry pi so I can login and see what is going on with the temperatures.


Well since announcing this and also doing a talk about it at last years Adelaide Mini I have received a few comments about this, the main one was "It's all good to read the temperature but without it doing something when it goes bad then it could be a waste" well to that end I am now in the middle of my Temperature sensor 2.0.


Previously I had to be home to monitor the temperatures of all the boxes (only because I couldn't be bothered adding routing from external to each raspberry pi) so I figured there had to be a better way, well there is. I now have a script that reads the temperature sensor, this will be set to run every x minutes, thinking 5 minutes, it then posts this data to a MySQL database on the master Raspberry Pi, if ANY of the sensors show a temperature in excess of 50 Degrees C it will send an email to my gmail account that is linked to my phone, instantly I know that something is wrong and I can login remotely to the master Raspberry Pi and shutdown the show, or monitor for changes. I can then implement some relays where I can shut down mains power to any control box again remotely.


Now I have all of the temperatures being logged to a MySQL database I can now play with the data, make graphs and charts to see if I can improve the air flow or try and cover the boxes during the day so they don't get too hot.


Another massive learning curve to get all of this, however the ultimate goal will then be an app that can monitor everything where ever you are, you can check temperatures of boxes, volts / amps, ensure each controller is working and if there is an error it can send an alert in the form of an email. But all of that might be a few years off, I am just happy to be able to monitor temperatures and get an email if something goes wrong.
 

SmartAlecLights

Im a SmartAlec what can i say!
Community project designer
Joined
May 4, 2010
Messages
1,533
Location
Murray Bridge, S.A.
i never logged my case temps.. but i used my arduino wireless temp circuit..
put it this way on a 35deg night (that we got a lot of)
the power supply enclosure case's was a scary 45-50deg..

after seeing that, i relised there is no need to monitor ::) 8)
but instead make sure you have alot of fans controlling the air movement. (an speed controlling them is not much use)
i also Dont have controllers with the Power supplys,
So i never measured the temp in the controller box's , that are airtight sealed (note to self put silica bag's in them)

An honestly what are you going to do if it gets too hot? (turn it off {an half the show} with it )

realy
1. we need to monitor the power supply fans so there working for starters an decently
2. make hot/cold ducting for the power supplys.
3. keep controllers out of power supply case's unless they stay cool..
4. metal box's even professional ones, look great but do get warm sitting outside in the heat.

thats my outtake of everything that has happened over the years with my show

hope some of that info might help

-- still love the idea of monitoring controllers temps, esp if i only have to add a sensor..
 

fasteddy

I have C.L.A.P
Global moderator
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Apr 26, 2010
Messages
6,648
Location
Albion Park NSW
I do like the ability to log as a lot can be learnt from the data to ensure your ventilation is working the way you intended it to work.
But nothing beats a well designed ventilated system that requires no management, but even then you could still have a failed fan and this is where the temp monitor would help especially the ability for it to send an email warning of this. We have a similar temp monitoring system at work for the computer server room and when it gets too hot then it will send us an email. After a while we realized that we needed additional cooling on the very hot days which may have been hard to detect without monitoring and logging the temps
 
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