Comments on: Boarduino vivarium temperature monitor

By: Arduino temperature and light data-logging and chartplotting webmonitor | codetorment

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:32:21 +0000

[...] started from Cyberspice’s code and changed the arduino code to make use of the DB18S20 and the ethernet [...]

By: Wiley

Wiley — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:52:14 +0000

I’ve been looking to do something similar with a planted viv that has a water feature. I’m hoping to add a humidity sensor that can kick on a relay with misters and do the same with fans if the temp gets too high. I’m thinking that the humidity sensor that sparkfun sells might not be able to deal with the high humidity that would be in a regularly misted vivarium though..

By: cyberspice

cyberspice — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:40:39 +0000

@jan I was discussing something similar not that long ago. Glad to see it will work. Thanks.

By: jan

jan — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:41:24 +0000

hey very nice project!
i use the same temp sensors, just take a couple of readings (maybee 10 with 20ms or so delay between them) and then average them. should do the trick!
as the noise is random it will be 0 in average.

By: cyberspice

cyberspice — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:03:49 +0000

@Andrew Currently its just the one sensor taking the ambient air temperature in the middle of the tank. However there are several spare ADCs on the AVR so there’s no reason why you can’t have more. The sensor has a flat on the package so you could fix it to the wall of the viv I would think although I’ve never tried it.

I’m having noise issues with the sensor. I’m thinking a low pass filter and some amplification. I’ve also been looking at some 1 wire sensors (which would transmit the temperature to the AVR as digital and hence not have the noise issue).

I’ve not looked at humidity at all but this is still very much the early stages.

By: cyberspice

cyberspice — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:50:06 +0000

@John They’re very kewl. Thanks for the tip.

By: cyberspice

cyberspice — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:17:56 +0000

@wrecks Actually that’s the next step I need an opto-isolator as a zero point crossing detector and an opto-triac driver. Watch this space

By: john

john — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:31:33 +0000

very cool, you should check out openflashcharts for the graph generation. they worked pretty well for me for an arduino current monitoring project i did awhile ago (see http://jarv.org/pwrmon_current.shtml )

By: wrecks

wrecks — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:46:45 +0000

You could use the boarduino to control the output of the light. Use a triac and you can clip the ac going into the bulb so you can produce the amount of light needed to stabilize the temp.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:35:45 +0000

great work!

I have a couple questions regarding the temp sensors.
I’ve been thinking of doing a similar project, however as a fellow ball python owner, i know that we need to monitor not just the air temp, but also the ground temp on the warm and cool side. Have you thought about surface mounted type sensors?

What about humidity?

I am also putting together a vivarium for some dendros (dart frogs) and have similar concerns for them

thanks!
great work and thanks for sharing!