Humidity?

[Mike]

Rather than just run it all year, I was considering trying to automate a dehumidifier I had in the basement. My thought was to get something to measure the humidity (which made me think of hobby-boards) tie it in with my Elk M1G and then control an appliance module (thinking down the line once Insteon modules work better for this type of scenario).

(note I was also considering the humidity monitoring in general, I suspect the payoff in automation from reduced energy expenses may be very long considering the initial cost (depending on the pieces that are required) and that in itself may not be an issue.)

Am I correct in thinking a hobby-board item would work? From what I can gather the more typical (and perhaps easier approach) would be to hook it to a computer, and then feed information to the Elk using existing methods/software.

If all this is true, would I need a humidity sensor, a serial adapter and a hub to work on this?

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Mike;

I certainly don't want to take anything away from Hobby Board's excellent products, but I'm wondering if you realize that the Elk M1 Gold inputs can act as analog inputs, although only eight bit.

I "think" that the maximum input voltage over this eight bit input is 14 volts (would have to check on this). This means that the input can measure 14 volts in "256 increments". The trick of course is to find a humidity sensor that will work with this limited range/accuracy.

If you need additional details on setting up an analog input sensor you can reference THIS guide.

Again, maybe the Hobby Boards would be the best option and I'm only throwing this out there showing the many existing capabilities of the Elk.

Regards,

BSR

 

[Mike]

Thanks, I had not realized that. Although I also now seem to remember Spanky referencing that Elk was working on 'aesthetic humidity sensors' (unless I am remembering this incorrectly and it was temperature sensors) at somepoint in the future. I'll have to search through the posts.

I have not done much research on this at all, it was something that occurred to me when I noticed it was still running and turned it off. I'm still in the middle of a couple projects so it's not like I'm bored or anything B)

 

[ericvic]

Unless the Elk can deal with 1-Wire somehow then either a computer would be needed or as BSR mentioned using the inputs on the Elk to directly read a humidity sensor.

Eric