Topic: 1-Wire Solar/Temp/Humid placement??

[mickopla]

I purchased a 1-wire Temp/Humid/Solar sensor from Hobby Boards to add to my set up.

In the guide on the Hobby Boards website it says make sure the sensor is facing the sky. The question i have is does a solar sensor have to be in direct sunlight to give proper readings or does pointing it skywards do? If the sensor does have to be in Sunlight surely this would affect the Temp/Humid readings.and negate the advantage of having all 3 sensors in one unit.

Any advice or views would be appreciated

Cheers

Mike

[mickopla]

I guess not many people have 1-wire stuff hence the lack of any replies.

I have another issue with my Temp/Humid/Solar sensor. It was working fine up to today but after getting a strange smell from the board i checked and found the Temp Sensor has burned out. Firstly can i bypass the Temp sensor in order to get the Solar/Humid part of the board working? I'm not too bothered about the Temp as i got the unit mainly for Solar. Secondly if i got a Temp sensor would it be tricky to replace it on such a small board??

Hopefully a few answers this time or even a link to a forum that has more 1-wire users

Mike

[miraculon]

Hello,

I have been out of town and didn't have a chance to reply. I recently converted to Davis VP2, but I am still running my legacy AAG/Hobby Boards One-Wire using OWW (One Wire Weather).

I don't have the solar sensor from H-B, I am planning on adding the Davis solar sensor soon. I really don't have any experience with the H-B solar sensor so I can't help with this question. I would think that you would want to have as much sun exposure to the sensor as possible and not shaded. I am planning on locating my Davis sensor in the most sunny location on my property.

You asked whether you could bypass the Temp sensor. Since all One-Wire devices are on the same net you could just remove it. Since you said that it burned out, I would completely remove it so that the damaged part isn't loading the bus.

Greg

[Bushman]

I guess not many people have 1-wire stuff hence the lack of any replies.

I have another issue with my Temp/Humid/Solar sensor. It was working fine up to today but after getting a strange smell from the board i checked and found the Temp Sensor has burned out. Firstly can i bypass the Temp sensor in order to get the Solar/Humid part of the board working? I'm not too bothered about the Temp as i got the unit mainly for Solar. Secondly if i got a Temp sensor would it be tricky to replace it on such a small board??

I've played with that stuff (but no the Hobby Boards versions) for years.  The HB solar/temp is offered with an optional DS18S20 so you can  ignore the dead one on your board; or remove it.  Replacment is easy and if you look around you can likely get a free sample from one of the vendors.

[miraculon]

The burned temperature sensor is concerning. I ran one-wire since 1998 and never had a device fail in this manner.

Are you using a DS9097U Serial Adapter? I wonder if something failed inside the adapter and one of the +/- 12V RS-232 lines shorted to the bus. I have reverse polarized the one-wire, etc without ever having a failure. It could have been a latent defect in the sensor, but I would confirm that your adapter is still OK as well.

[Bushman]

Same adapater.  Seems like the temp sensor failed open.  Should be fine.  And I too have not see these sorts of things; pretty hard to do with 1-wire.

[mickopla]

Thanks Guys for all the replies. Eric at hobby boards sorted me out with a new unit which hopefully i will receive before Easter.
 Before i returned the board to him i took off the burned temp sensor and tried to get the Solar and Humid working. There were damaged traces on the circuit board which probably contributed to the fact that it wouldn't work. I figure it would be a pain to repair these traces so i didn't even bother fitting the new Temp sensor that i had got online.
Off course now i know that the solar sensor has to be placed in direct sunlight so basically the Temp/Humid part of the board are redundant. Even in shade the Temp/Humid/Solar sensor won't read the correct temp due to the voltage regulator on the board causing temps to be 1 or 2c high. So basically if you want an accurate temp get the stand alone unit.
Some said that maybe the USB adapter was the cause of my burned sensor but its working fine as its picking up my 6 channel hub. 
So now i'm waiting for my new board and hopefully it will work ok.
I have a spare temp sensor now and i'm wondering is there anyplace that sell just the boards? I asked Eric but he said they don't sell them anymore due to lack of demand.

Cheers

Mike

[Bushman]

Try www.farcircuits.net  They used to sell David Bray's One-wire boards; I have some of his stuff.  Good.

[mickopla]

Try www.farcircuits.net  They used to sell David Bray's One-wire boards; I have some of his stuff.  Good.

I had a look through their catalog and couldn't find any 1-wire stuff or a mention of David Bray. I would imagine its hard just to get a board with all the components without a sensor.

[miraculon]

Some said that maybe the USB adapter was the cause of my burned sensor but its working fine as its picking up my 6 channel hub. 

This might be a clue. If it is the Hobby-Boards hub, there is a provision to feed 12V out to the devices that need it. Is there any possibility that this voltage is shorted to the data line? The higher voltage is fed out on a different pin (7) than the normal "one wire" data line. Something very unusual happened to your sensor and I would double-check this possibility before connecting the new board.

As far as connecting the temperature sensor, I have mounted one on a small test board and soldered the wires and sensor to it. There really isn't much to a temperature sensor by itself. You can get away without any external parts unlike the other Maxim chips. I have even soldered small gauge (phone type) wires directly to the sensor and protected the wires with small heat shrink tubing. (it is running on my hub right now for my computer room temperature)

Greg

[mickopla]

Some said that maybe the USB adapter was the cause of my burned sensor but its working fine as its picking up my 6 channel hub. 

This might be a clue. If it is the Hobby-Boards hub, there is a provision to feed 12V out to the devices that need it. Is there any possibility that this voltage is shorted to the data line? The higher voltage is fed out on a different pin (7) than the normal "one wire" data line. Something very unusual happened to your sensor and I would double-check this possibility before connecting the new board.

As far as connecting the temperature sensor, I have mounted one on a small test board and soldered the wires and sensor to it. There really isn't much to a temperature sensor by itself. You can get away without any external parts unlike the other Maxim chips. I have even soldered small gauge (phone type) wires directly to the sensor and protected the wires with small heat shrink tubing. (it is running on my hub right now for my computer room temperature)

Greg

Very interesting information. I did receive my replacement board yesterday and its running fine. There may be some truth in your observation about some sort of short happening. I was using an rj45 joiner to connect 2 cables together. Before the sensor burned out i did change a cable as i needed extra length. After inspecting that cable today i discovered the wiring colors on one end are not in the correct order for Rj45. I had used this same cable for Ethernet networks before without any issues. I'm guessing that maybe that cable shorted out something.

With regards the Temp sensor i'm very interested to hear you can just connect wires to the sensor and get it to work. So for example i connect 3 wires to the pins on the sensor how do i connect this to my hub or other devices to get it to register?? It would be great to get the spare Temp sensor i have working. Thanks in advance

Mike

[Bushman]

I think if you have the hub pinouts it s dead simple - connect and the devices self-identify.  This guy is Mr. 1-Wire:  http://1wire.org/Files/Awtrey/Articles.htm

[miraculon]

According to the DS18S20 datasheet (found on Maxim-IC website) http://www.maxim-ic.com/datasheet/index.mvp/id/2815 you just have to connect the unused Vdd pin to the ground pin. Effectively, this means connecting pin 1 and 3 together for the ground side and the data line goes to pin 2 (DQ pin).

[mickopla]

According to the DS18S20 datasheet (found on Maxim-IC website) http://www.maxim-ic.com/datasheet/index.mvp/id/2815 you just have to connect the unused Vdd pin to the ground pin. Effectively, this means connecting pin 1 and 3 together for the ground side and the data line goes to pin 2 (DQ pin).

So basically i use a short piece of wire to connect Pin 1 to Pin 3. Then come out of either with the GND wire to Pin 5 of an RJ45 connector. Solder a piece of wire to Pin 2 and connect to the Data Pin 4 of the RJ45 and connect to the Hub and it should recognize the sensor? Sounds straight forward enough. Brilliant info  miraculon. Much appreciated  

Mike

Edit, I did just as outlined above and it worked.