Web Enabled Time/Temp/Humidity and I/O Controller

Send me your snail mail address via email and I will shoot you a length or two. I've used up my game port connectors but I've got plenty of 20 conductor ribbon I can spare that you can peel off four conductors from. Email address is munged - change 00's to OO's to get through.

Vendors do mysterious things. If I didn't already have some old PC game port cables I probably would have paid three times the going rate just to have the cable and connector available at time and place of purchase. That was one of the things I really liked about fellow newsgrouper Jeff Volp's XTB-II series. He sold the required cabling and likely accessories all at the time of purchase, cutting the hassle factor immensely. And cheaper than I could have gotten the stuff nearly anywhere else.

WebControl would probably serve themselves well by making the temp sensors and the humidity sensors available through their Amazon storel. Their tech support person Sophie did allude to some pretty serious restrictions placed on them by Amazon like not being able to even point to their own site's URL for the documentation. I know Ebay used to have similar restrictions, but almost any big Ebay store nowadays seems to expect people to bypass Ebay after the first sale and they post their own store URL's freely on their Ebay listings.

My Honeywell humidity sensors arrived today, so I'm going to get to hooking them up RSN, providing everything else cooperates. So far, that's not the case. The car's developed a water leak somewhere, and is beginning to grow mold I can't see but sure can smell. My security DVR decides to stop recording randomly, which is quite annoying since some vandals stole all the local street signs last night - while my new DVR was locked up!!! I've alreadly returned it once because the drive cable was melted. This means running all sorts of tests. )-: Electronics requires too much care and feeding!

Well, I'll let you know a) the Honeywell sensors even work (they came from a guy in Canada, not a big electronics house. They were half price, which means only one of them probably works, b) if the two unit's readings agree with each other and c) if they agree with any of the other humidity sensors in the house (none of which agree exactly with each other, but are mostly within 10% of each other. Mostly).

-- Bobby G.

Well, I got one for Christmas - from my wife! So now I don't have to think up projects to convince her - but I'm still thinkig up things to do.

Any progress reports possbily available elsehwere?

Jim

I wish I did. I've run into one of those stretches where things seem to be breaking down faster than I can fix them. The incredibly, continuous, way below zero weather we've been have has caused some pretty interesting failures. Haven't even tested the dang humidistat or temp sensors to ensure they work correctly.

I should probably look up the old threads concerning back-stabbed outlets and hard-of-hearing smoke alarms and add some new information. Had a backstabber get so hot, it began melting wires. The hard of hearing smoke alarm apparently goes off for no particular reason and at the oddest hours of the day so my elderly friend has yanked the batteries. Not the outcome I want.

But all the pieces of the web controller are in place now - got a small Ethernet switch and some old laptops with network connection to create a "sandbox" to play with the unit - the final pieces have arrived today. I found some 8.4VDC/0.6A switching power supplies to power the board. Didn't want to use the old non-switching adapters I had lying around because I didn't have two match ones and I couldn't bring myself to cut a perfectly good, strained-relief plug from one of my junk bin units.

These are Canon brand units that actually screw together so they might even be repairable or filterable if they turn out to be too noisy, electrically.

I just checked these out on the bench and they are voltage regulated to within .02 of a volt. I found that they are very useful for running 80mm PC case fans at whisper quiet level, and I have begun mounting these to various TV's and amplifiers. I thought there was something wrong with them at first. I plugged them in after stripping and tinning the leads and then went to test the polarity so I could mark the positive lead red. Well, my electronics bench bottle of red nail polish had dried out, so I put some red heat shrink on the positive lead. Just because reversed polarity can kill things, I checked one more time with an bicolor LED and resistor that I use to test polarity and it glowed for a second or two and then went out. Put the voltmeter on it again, and it showed exactly 8.40VDC and then went "hunting." Turns out I had accidentally unplugged the power supply and I was running off voltage stored in the caps.

I found another use for these PS's. The IR thermometer I got for Christmas (great toy, under $20 from Ebay, hundreds of uses - even SWMBO has found uses for it. Any, the thermometer was showing much higher temperatures than I thought on everything from LCD TV's to amps. (Sony appears to synchronize their warranties with how long their gear will last without aux. cooling.)

I had a big Sony amp that would always trigger the thermal protector after an hour or so of Pink Floyd, but since I added an 80mm fan running at 9V (higher, actually because that PS is not regulated) it hasn't shut down once. Now the speakers are the first to pop a breaker, but I don't think cooling will help them as much. (-: So anyway, I'm going to order some more because they spin the fans fast enough to move significant air but slowly enough so that they can hardly be heard. Now you know why I am not yet on the web controller project. I'm easily sidetracked! But I think I can finally get a test unit rolling tonight.

Got a bunch of 6 & 9VDC DPDT mini relays (not sure which will work better), some diodes to prevent the relays coils from spiking, some quick disconnects and other miscellany because I like to be able to switch out things like the main board without having to unscrew wires.

I also have buckets of IDE hard drive cables because I do a lot of PC repair and that's a commodity that seems to grow and grow in the junk bin. Not sure how I want to connect the sensor wires. I might use the tons of printer and serial cables I have lying around or I might get a "daughterboard" for the controller that's got a 40 pin header to use ribbon cables. Either way, I'm designing the unit so it's "snap out-able" so if anything goes wrong, replacement's a snap. (-:

I wish I could give you an update on the board and all the things I have planned, but spare time seems to have completely disappeared since I retired. I'm still trying to figure out how that happened - it seems to violate some sort of law of physics. That's more than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure.

(-:

Soon, very soon.

-- Bobby G.

[snip]

Yeah, I've heard about that but won't ge to experience it for a while.

Thanks for the PS tip - I'll have to get some of those next time I place an order to All Elect.

Jim

They want $49.84 plus about $10 for UPS in US.

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They want $49.84 plus about $10 for UPS in US.

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