Temperature Monitoring..

[jpkishere]

Planning on building a new house soon and am starting off with a bunch of home automation projects.. I figured instead of trying to figure all things out at once I would start with one at a time..

I have been researching setting up temperature sensor's in almost all of my rooms and a few other areas.. Here is what I plan to do so far..

Purchase a DS9097U and hook it up to the serial port of my computer. (I haven't fully decided on HA software, but I am leaning towards homeseer.) Then I want to hook up approx 10-15 DS18S20 devices by just installing them in RJ11 phone jacks...

I looked at the TEMP05/08 and since I am just trying this out, figured I could start with the DS9097U and if I need to upgrade I can go that route.. (basically $10 vs $80)

Also, for the most part, I planned on mounting the DS18S20 devices inside of an RJ11 plug and then just stick that in the "telephone jack"..

My questions are as follows:

- Can the DS9097U handle 10-15 DS18S20 devices?
- When the house is built, the wire jacks will be wired in a star-topology (CAT-5e).. From what I read on Maxim's site, (application note 148) star-toplogy's are not recommended.. Based on everyone's experience will this work or do I have to run special wiring for the temperature sensors?
- Can I puchase a Honeywell Humdifity Sensor (HIH-3605) and connect that as well?
- How to handle the wire management portion? Should I run a 66 or 110 block and then how do I get all that wiring to feed into the DS9097U (any pictures?)

Thanks!
jpk

 

[smee]

Can the DS9097U handle 10-15 DS18S20 devices?

I've only connected 4 or 5 max, but more shouldn't be a problem.

When the house is built, the wire jacks will be wired in a star-topology (CAT-5e).. From what I read on Maxim's site, (application note 148) star-toplogy's are not recommended.. Based on everyone's experience will this work or do I have to run special wiring for the temperature sensors?

You can usually get away with star configurations with only a few branches. You should put 100 ohm resistors inline with the data wire on each branch.

Daisychain configurations are really recommended. The results will be much more stable.

Can I puchase a Honeywell Humdifity Sensor (HIH-3605) and connect that as well?

I don't know if anyone has successfully connected one of these to 1-wire. There are numerous 1-wire compatible humidity sensors out there (built on the DS2438 and an analog humidity sensor). These work well.

How to handle the wire management portion? Should I run a 66 or 110 block and then how do I get all that wiring to feed into the DS9097U (any pictures?)

My setup is not wired "into the walls" since I live in an apartment. All of the wiring is using standard 4-conductor phone wire or cat-5 (depending on where in the network it is). I use plugs and jacks for everything. There's a single plut, then, that goes into my TEMP05. Each of my temperature sensors has two jacks, an input and an output (if you will, although they are exactly the same configuration). Typically, I build the temperature sensor into inline rj11/rj12 couplers.

 

[jpkishere]

Thanks for the reply...

You can usually get away with star configurations with only a few branches. You should put 100 ohm resistors inline with the data wire on each branch.

Daisychain configurations are really recommended. The results will be much more stable.

Each temperature sensor would be on its own branch.. So you would suggest that I switch to a daisy-chain configuration? or will the 100ohm resistors help with this?

I don't know if anyone has successfully connected one of these to 1-wire. There are numerous 1-wire compatible humidity sensors out there (built on the DS2438 and an analog humidity sensor). These work well.

Do you have any examples/recommendations of companies using them? Was looking for something I could mount in the wall jack as you do..

My setup is not wired "into the walls" since I live in an apartment. All of the wiring is using standard 4-conductor phone wire or cat-5 (depending on where in the network it is). I use plugs and jacks for everything. There's a single plut, then, that goes into my TEMP05. Each of my temperature sensors has two jacks, an input and an output (if you will, although they are exactly the same configuration). Typically, I build the temperature sensor into inline rj11/rj12 couplers.

Gotcha, that is what I was planning on doing for mounting of them as well.. You mention that you plug into the TEMP05, do you still use a DS9097U and if so, what do you use it for?

So if I do the star-configuration, I would have to tie in all the lines into something a single RJ11/12 jack and then plug that into the DS9097U..

Thanks again!!
Jeremy

 

[smee]

Each temperature sensor would be on its own branch.. So you would suggest that I switch to a daisy-chain configuration? or will the 100ohm resistors help with this?

The most I've ever done is 3 branches, each with multiple 1wire devices. My current configuration has only 2. For best results, you should daisy-chain as many as possible and try to limit the number of branches.

I don't know if anyone has successfully connected one of these to 1-wire. There are numerous 1-wire compatible humidity sensors out there (built on the DS2438 and an analog humidity sensor). These work well.

Do you have any examples/recommendations of companies using them? Was looking for something I could mount in the wall jack as you do..

Midon Design sells boards or premade humidity sensors. I have a couple boards from them. I have also used bare boards from jjware (which no longer sells them) and soldered my own components. Someone else has started making similar boards. I forget who, but it's someone on this board. I think this is the site: www.hobby-boards.com. A lot of people get their stuff from www.aag.com.mx but I've never ordered from them.

You mention that you plug into the TEMP05, do you still use a DS9097U and if so, what do you use it for?

I only use the DS9097U for testing, these days. It's not connected to my HS machine. I got it when it was just about the only simple interface to 1wire devices available. I still use it connected to another machine when I want a simple way to test runs of devices.

So if I do the star-configuration, I would have to tie in all the lines into something a single RJ11/12 jack and then plug that into the DS9097U.

Right now, I have my 2 runs come together using a standard 1-to-2 line splitter and a coupler. There are two couplers on the branches that contain 100 ohm resistors. These are actually done in RJ45 couplers because my lines at that point are running through cat5 cable instead of phone lines.

The cat5 comes back to a patch panel near the computer. I pull out the 1-wire lines through a phone jack and plug that into the TEMP05.

But anyway, yes, you pretty much need to tie all the lines together at one point and feed that into the DS9097U (or TEMP05/08, etc.).