advice on calibration esp. solar radiation senso

[wallyllama]

I just recieved two solar radiation sensor boards. I haven't connected them yet, but I am curious about calibration. I assume the 1-wire net will return a number that is proportional to the voltage on the sensor, but I could use some advice on calibrating that to some standard.

Initially a relative reading will suffice, but my future plans would work better if I can relate the readings to a known value.

Some of the things I would like to do are measure the amount of sunlight available for solar panels, find out if there is enough light (or shade) to grow certain plants in my yard, etc. I don't need laboratory grade precision, but I would like it to be as accurate as I can.

 

[ericvic]

At this point we don't have any information on calibrating the solar sensor to any standard. We will be doing some testing later this year to try and come up with a mapping of the output voltage to some solar standard.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Eric

 

[wallyllama]

Thank you for letting me know. I'll dig around, and if I come up with something I'll report back. If it was critical that I have the information, I would have bought a $500+ sensor from a laboratory equipment company, for $24 I'm willing to do some work.

 

[abraxas1]

And please share with others what information you can come up with. it seems intrinisically difficult to do this with a bare sensor. perhaps there's a better chance if it's in some sort of miniture integrating sphere.
maybe a small frosted-glass sphere over it.
hummm, get's me thinkin'

michael