Author Topic: Farmer Needs Inexpensive Greenhouse Monitoring Solution  (Read 5395 times)

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Offline 2thepoint

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Re: Farmer Needs Inexpensive Greenhouse Monitoring Solution
« Reply #25 on: December 09, 2016, 06:23:02 PM »
Hi All, I finally I had a short 10 minute chat/ show and tell with my farmer friend.  He decided to go with the Wireless Tag solution.  I want to emphasize that I'm a light weight tech enthusiast and he's a heads down farmer with little knowledge or background in technology.  Preventive maintenance is almost non existent on his farm equipment.  It's a fix it on the fly - however it's possible environment!!  Not a great mix for anything more than a canned plug and play technical solution needing little care & feeding.

I did a quick fly by to check out his network infrastructure in the main farmhouse.  Not sure if his cable modem is DOCSIS 3?? or his WLAN Router will make the final cut.  I believe the WLAN is running wide open, so password protection is high on the list.  I plan to install one Ethernet Tag Manager and then configure the account, gui, parameters, alerts, etc for a couple sensors and then move them as far from Tag Manager #1.  If the Tag Manager detects the sensors at the the farthest greenhouses, then we're golden and will likely use a single Tag Manager to configure/monitor all the sensors

Here's what I've come up with so far to get this off the ground.

* (2) Ethernet Tag Managers - One located at his home/farm house, the other (if necessary) located at a secondary house at the other end of the farm. 

* (40) Wireless Sensor Tag Pro ALS - rainproof (includes spares and additional greenhouses not initially factored) to measure temp, humidity, and ambient light

* (1) WLAN Router - 8 port

* (2) TP-Link N300 Wi-Fi Range Extender (TL-WA855RE) - might be a cheap option if there are fringe areas (all greenhouses have AC power)

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to offer suggestions and contribute.  I may provide a quick update to share progress.

Happy Holidays!!

Phil
Mickleton, NJ
GW1000
HP2551
GW2000
WS90
WH41B
Meteobridge/RPi4

Offline mwall

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Re: Farmer Needs Inexpensive Greenhouse Monitoring Solution
« Reply #26 on: December 22, 2016, 06:00:30 PM »
fyi, there is another alternative for monitoring temperature and humidity at multiple locations.  ambient weather has been selling the ws-3000 for at least a few months (firmware numbers indicate a first release around april 2016).

http://www.ambientweather.com/amws3000x5.html

available directly from ambient, or via amazon.

the ws-3000 supports up to 8 remote sensors.  cost is about 100$US for console plus 5 sensors.  additional sensors cost about 11$US each.  sensors transmit on 915MZ every 60 seconds.  nominal battery life is 1 year for 2AA batteries per sensor. 

so the ws-3000 is functionally equivalent to the klimalogg solution, but lower cost, smaller remotes, and with a much nicer display.

there will be a weewx driver for this hardware very soon now (it was much easier to write than the driver for the klimalogg).

i realize that 2thepoint is asking for a solution with plug-and-play uploading of data.  the ws3000 does not do this out-of-the-box, but it is right in line with the other options listed earlier in this thread.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2016, 06:03:37 PM by mwall »

Offline George Richardson

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Re: Farmer Needs Inexpensive Greenhouse Monitoring Solution
« Reply #27 on: December 22, 2016, 08:51:22 PM »
Looks as if the transmission distance "(100 feet under most conditions)" would be a deal breaker for this product.

Offline 2thepoint

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Re: Farmer Needs Inexpensive Greenhouse Monitoring Solution
« Reply #28 on: December 27, 2016, 01:21:22 AM »
Hi All:
Hope everyone had a great holiday!

George, the 100' range would be a show stopper for this solution.

A quick update, I installed a new higher end 8 port WIFI router on the 2nd floor in a spare bedroom facing the greenhouse.  Although WIFI is not a factor in the WirelessTag configuration, the farm uses an IOS-WIFI app to process electronic payments if the primary phone app goes down.  So the new router gives them more reach and security.  It's scary that the original router I replaced didn't have WIFI encryption enabled????

We have 14 greenhouses online so far and an enclosed pump house which is critical for irrigation.  The greenhouses winter over some warmer weather perennials, succulents, etc.  He also had 10K poinsettias spread over several houses that are now gone.  The temps before Christmas were in the 20's!!!  We encountered some bumps and we're working through.  Nothing major....more annoying than anything.  The farmer sees value so that's really the most important factor.  He's not to the point of sleeping through the night, but he has confessed that he'll turn over and look at his iphone to see what's going on.

Then there was the worker who was listening to music on his iphone connected to a bluetooth speaker 5' from the sensor! Cats sleeping on the router, it goes on and on.....lol 

Mods: I realize this is the AcuRite forum and started this post looking for a possible AcuRire solution and wound up full circle.  I hope I didn't violate forum protocol.  I just wanted to share what has happened. Thanks for understanding.

Happy New Year!!  and thanks again to all who participated....Phil in NJ

 
GW1000
HP2551
GW2000
WS90
WH41B
Meteobridge/RPi4

Offline EJ Leger

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Re: Farmer Needs Inexpensive Greenhouse Monitoring Solution
« Reply #29 on: July 28, 2017, 12:47:38 PM »
Not a farmer, but this is the only post I have read that mentions the WS-3000.  Question:  Is there any way to download the data from the monitor to my computer without removing the memory card?  Is there a hack for That?

Offline mwall

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Re: Farmer Needs Inexpensive Greenhouse Monitoring Solution
« Reply #30 on: July 28, 2017, 01:08:50 PM »
Question:  Is there any way to download the data from the monitor to my computer without removing the memory card?  Is there a hack for That?

how are you at writing python code?

the windows software provided by ambient weather includes the option 'SD Card File' that pulls data from the devices and saves it as a csv file.

it should be fairly straightforward to add that capability to the weewx-hp3000 driver (as of july 2017, the weewx-hp3000 driver only reads current data).  then you could get the historical data on any platform, not just windows.  and you could script it with something like:

Code: [Select]
wee_device /etc/weewx/hp3000.conf --download --format csv > filename.csv
the usb protocol was pretty easy to decode and reverse engineer - it is documented in the weewx-hp3000 comments.

all you would have to do is sniff a couple of 'Menu -> SD Card File' operations, isolate the command, and decode the returned data.  the wee_device infrastructure provides the context in which to run it.

i'd love to help, but i'm swamped right now

Offline EJ Leger

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Re: Farmer Needs Inexpensive Greenhouse Monitoring Solution
« Reply #31 on: July 29, 2017, 05:50:44 PM »
Thanks for your reply. I would have thought that somebody would have come up with some code that I could copy to accomplish the task. I'm not much of a programmer.  Too bad the original developers did not consider this. Hopefully there's someone out there that can help me.