I still have to wait for my new parts (ordering tomorrow) and found a bit of time before leaving for holiday up North to the land of ice and snow.
That is a very interesting way of doing the sensor wiring. I'm glad you posted it, could you post some pictures closeup?
I have pretty much figured out how I am going to wire it. I will be using RJ45's cause I got rid of my land line and am only keeping what is already there. I am probably also going to replace, except for the kitchen, the other phone jack with a quick port and add an RJ45. Why, well, most of the hobby boards are setup for that connector and I can fix the ports up for ethernet, just put the sensor in the hole and feed it out the back hole, crimp in place. Sensor is out the way and pretty much out of sight. Then if/when I move I can just remove the sensors from those ports and have it wired for ethernet or someone could add/change it to phone line if they wanted. And like
sda mentioned it is open to room air also.
That only works for part of my locations though. I still have attic, outside, basement, thermostat area. I put the first two sensors in hardwired. It was pretty easy, but I decided I wanted a more modular and easily replaced/changed/removed system. Here is my new idea, I tested it on a
inline coupler I had. They come apart. So for every location that isn't using a ethernet quick port in the ground level rooms I will be using and RJ45 inline coupler. Splice my three wires (I am setting this hole thing up as powered) into the coupler. Drill a small hole to feed the wires out. Not sure how long going to make the wires. I would like a few inches at least. Here is a fast picture without heatshrink,... but you get the idea. Takes a little work to setup, but it's bench work and can do them all at once.
That will work for all the other sensors and allows me to have some movement of where to put the sensor if need to move it a little bit away from the run.
In the kitchen I am going to come from the closet in the frontroom and poke the sensor from the closet into the kitchen stairwell. Hide it by the picture hangng there.
Then there is the thermostat. It is a little harder, but after putting hardwired sensor there, figure out a better way. I wanted a humidity sensor there also. So getting humidity/temp sensor board with case. Removing the humidity sensor and temp from the board and extending them out about 6-10 inches i think is all I need. I'll crimp some RJ45's on the cat5 and the humidity/temp board will rest on the laundry shoot box behind the wall. The sensors will poke out from behind the themostat on the wall. I have a temp sensor already there so modularizing this should be easier than it was getting it all there the first time. Thanks to fishing line.
So I only have two in place right now and going to do this to them also. Finally saw the furnace come on today and the one in the duct about 15 feet away got up to around 132 F. I was only recording every 15 minutes though. I'll get all the software logging,... finished when get the hardware done more. One of the reasons for doing this is to look for degradation of system and do some preventative maintenance. So will need to get some baselines.
Another cool thing is might be able to keep using digitemp. They seem to be supporting the devices on the relay board and the humidity board now.
So won't have the parts till after Thanksgiving and then going to build everything up first, except for cable runs. But it will be easier to work on and add/fix/remove,.. parts. And with the 6 channel master hub I have lots of room to do other stuff. But except for infrared sensor to read my outside meter and possibly control a few lights. I really don't want to do much more. Oh wait, I might add a x10 camera to front door? Catch who ever ripped my 'no soliciting' sticker off. Luckily I have lots more.
