Subject: PC Controlled Grow-Room Equipment?

From: [email-masked] (Arthur G. Bates III)
Date: 3 Sep 1996 02:31:03 GMT

Greetings,

I've been trying to find suppliers of PC controlled sensors and devices
for growing rooms, i.e., humidity, CO2, soil & air temp., etc. anything 
available out there that will fit a very small business budget?

I've been following several discussions of this nature on various other
groups, and thought it seemed like a good idea. Imagine being able to
control a sealed environment through your PC. 

Thanks for any help.

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From: [email-masked] (Mark Spear)
Date: 4 Sep 96 02:27:10 -0700

There are some systems availible for mushroom growers.  They are not 
especially cheap.  There is usually some kind of stand alone board 
that does the controlling and it reports to the PC and takes orders 
>from  the PC.

For a low cost option that has proven reliable you might try the 
Samstat.  I've had one for a few years now but not connected to a PC. 
 I think the new one does link in though.  Sam Goodwin (who makes the 
units) has a real solid reputation.

Just a question.  Do you really want to tie up a PC with room 
control?  Do you want your PC to run 24 hours a day forever?  Don't 
you have other things to do with it besides such a simple task?  Just 
asking.

    ---- Mark

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From: [email-masked] (UNICORNbag)
Date: 4 Sep 1996 01:43:54 -0400

There are many suppliers of input/output controllers coupled to PCs, but
the cost is estimated to be 3-4000 dollars with software. Just for one
variable you can easily control with single dedicated controllers for next
to nothing. You can get a lot of goodies at surplus stores, Radio Shak
parts etc. At the back of most PC magazines you see ads for controllers
for industrial applications, and many can be used either directly or
slightly modified for all the applications you mentioned.
Lou Hsu
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (David N. Gaines)
Date: 12 Sep 1996 15:11:15 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] says...
>control a sealed environment through your PC. 

Arthur,

You might look into getting a data logger (Campbell Scientific, Inc., 
Model 21X).  This instrument allows simultaneous readings on as many as  
18 probes.  There are different kinds of probes made for the instrument 
which can read soil or air temperature, humidity, windspeed, etc.  These 
data loggers can be connected (interfaced) with a computer to provide 
storage of recorded data and graphic printout.   It might be possible to 
get an old IBM 286 (or slower) cheap, and use it as the brains of your 
beast.  You would certainly have to do some fancy programming to get the 
computer to respond to data logger input and send signals to 
environmental controllers, and this is beyond my realm.
Anyway, it was just a thought.

David