Environmental Monitoring

Discussion
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As discussed on another thread, I installed a remote sensor in the clean area tonight over by the power cupboard. Please leave it plugged in as it’s collecting temperature and humidity data every 2 minutes.
Walking around the space tonight I noticed a marked difference in the temp of the clean area vs the other areas. Next time I have the reflow oven out I’ll make up another monitor and put it next to the laser cutter for comparison.

If you want to see the data and graphs from the monitor system it’s published live to https://thingspeak.com/channels/197562/

Courty

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Cloud base?

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No it is based in slms :wink:

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according to the humidity, the cloud base is roughly 0 mind.

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Just to add that last night it’s saying the temperature got down to under 14c which is the minimum for the laser cutter.

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Do you mean for operation, or the minimum that the laser cutter should be exposed to, even if not in operation?

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To maintain the life of the tube.

Now that the tube itself is inside a semi-insulated cubby hole, a small thermostat-controlled heater wouldn’t be a crazy idea.

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Ready made items like this exist for terrariums (terraria)

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Thermostat and a light bulb

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Answers in order ! Cloudbase… the monitor was designed for outdoor use and cloud base is the theoretical height at which clouds will form given pressure, humidity and temperature…

14c is quite cold but firstly, the clean room is several deg warmer than the dusty room (I’ll make up another monitor when I get a sec) and secondly, the humidity is quite high… normal household levels would be 35 to 45%, the arch is showing >50%

I agreed with Tom, a small heater would help the laser, something like the greenhouse type - https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/DXECOT4.html

Courty

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The second monitor is up and running in the messy area over near the metal bench and 3d printer.

This one is monitoring Temperature, Humidity and Dew point (the point at which condensation starts). it will take a few days to build up the data and calm down but it will be interesting to see the difference between the two spaces as you can normally feel a marked difference, especially when the Laser extract is running.

Data for the new sensor can be found at :-
https://thingspeak.com/channels/203323

The Clean area monitor is on :-
https://thingspeak.com/channels/197562

Courty

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Looks like messy is not to bad but clean needs some warming up.

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Hi @Courty

Is that a pre made board or did you put it together?
If it is a bought board, Do you have s link?

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They’re my own boards that I designed and had manufactured to give complete support for the ESP8266-12 series of modules… I originally made them for remote weather monitoring…
what you got in mind ?

Courty

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would be interesting if we could link it up somehow to know when the extractor is turned on so it is visible in the data

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Absolutely… @joeatkin2 has done a design for extract control but it would be good to connect it up to the membership and monitoring systems (I’m sure that was the plan).
@jonathanjo was talking about having a chat about the greater systems plan, may be this is a good subject to include…

Courty

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MQTT is a really good way to do this sort of thing.

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It’s on the list :grinning:

First thing I will make on the new bench

Was not part of the plan but setting a flag will not be a problem

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The membership system has a way of recording this data, it was designed for this.

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I had a project idea to have a rotating light come on just before a train passes overhead. I was going to tap into the TFL API to pre-empt when they will pass but someone suggested it might not correlate too well for various reasons.

In order to test this I was thinking of monitoring vibration - if I find something suitable (or if someone can suggest something suitable I haven’t started research into this and no next to nothing about vibration sensors) would you be willing to attach this to your existing monitors @Courty? MIght be useful data also for the lathe and laser cutter and other sensitive equipment.