Temperature/humidity loggers

Discussion in 'Plants: Science and Cultivation' started by Sulev, Aug 20, 2019.

  1. Sulev

    Sulev Contributor

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    Do you monitor weather parameters in your garden with some automatic data logger?
    I use 3 different USB loggers for monitoring the air relative humidity+temperature and the soil temperature.
    A sample graph of temperatures (blue, ºC) and RH (magenta, %) from my melon tent current summer is attached. Unfortunately the BSIDE BTH81 Relative Humidity Temperature Recorder exhausts its battery sooner than one full season and is not very suitable for high humidity environment (readings go grazy at high humidity). My Elitech loggers can work continuously several years without exhausting their battery, but they have no RH logging feature. Is there any good alternatives for recording RH?

    BTW, despite the global warming, this summer has been rather cold here. According to the official data (Estonian Weather Service) July was one degree colder than the long time average and the first decade of August was even 2.5 degrees colder than the long time average.
     

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    Last edited: Aug 21, 2019
  2. Sundrop

    Sundrop Well-Known Member

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  3. vitog

    vitog Contributor 10 Years

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    Sundrop, what outdoor and indoor units do you use to transmit data to your computer?
     
  4. Sulev

    Sulev Contributor

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    As Sundrop stores information only about extremes and precipitation, it's most possibly done manually. If I am wrong, and there is affordable electronic percipitation recorder, then I am very interested about details. This kind of equipment has usually pretty nice price tag: rain sensor
     
  5. Sundrop

    Sundrop Well-Known Member

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    Yes, as Sulev has guessed I use my fingers and computer keyboard for transmission :-)
    I have a measuring can on my deck to measure the rainfall. As for snow I just look through my basement kitchen window at the steps leading to my house door to see how much accumulation there is. The distance between the steps is exactly 15 cm so I don't even have to measure to know how much snow there is. The error can be in the range of 0.5 cm. I do it for myself only so the accuracy is good enough for me. As for temperature I relay on my local weather forecast. Again, I do it just for myself, it is not part of any scientific study.
     
  6. vitog

    vitog Contributor 10 Years

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    Regarding precipitation, an expensive electronic unit is not worthwhile for most gardeners. I only want to know how much it has rained since the last time I watered the garden, and a cheap tubular rain gauge with a funnel top works quite well. It is also easy to record the amount, since it doesn't usually have to be done every day or at any particular time. Temperature is a different matter; in the Vancouver area there is a significant range of temperature variation. The YVR airport temperatures are usually several degrees cooler on a sunny day and warmer on a clear night than my back yard temperatures. I have a simple electronic indoor/outdoor thermometer that stores the maximum and minimum temperatures since the last reset; but it needs to be reset and the readings recorded every evening, if I want a complete record. I'm looking for a system that will transmit daily max and min temperatures to my computer, or at least store them for a while until they can be downloaded.
     
  7. Sulev

    Sulev Contributor

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  8. Sundrop

    Sundrop Well-Known Member

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    I wonder what do you need such a detailed information for? And doesn't the soil temperature at any given time varies from one spot to another depending on the sun exposure (full sun, full shade, mulch cover, etc.) and the depth you measure it at?
     
  9. Sulev

    Sulev Contributor

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    I need these data to estimate, what is the optimal time for starting different crops, how to plan successive cropping, when to start preparing for harvest (by removing late flower buds to force ripening of fruits) etc. I live only 8 km away from our Weather Service's observation station, but I can't directly use their data, because their temperatures are much warmer in summer nights and at wintertime in general and less hot in summer days (because they are closer to the sea and also more affected by settlement and by traffic. They are lieing on the limestone rock, I live on top of the sands, 30% higher than the weather station). And they don't provide easily perceptibly visualised data, but only inconvenient tables and graphs, that you should look by hour or by day.
    My data are coming almost without any effort. I can see from there, for instance, why my okras are sometimes dropping their flower buds (some nights got too chilly), when exactly was that night frost, that damaged my potatoes or pumpkins in the middle of summer, when official weather forecast predicted +9°C nights, but actual was +5°C only (that means that on the ground light frost was possible). So I know, at what official prediction I have to use floating row covers to protect my plants, and when it is unnecessary, etc.
    I can see, at what time I should ventilate my melon tent or hot bed to prevent it become too hot. I can test different methods how to warm up the soil for cucumbers, and how long different thickness of horce manure or lawn clippings layer under the bed warms the bed enough.
    I live at 59.3N. I see from my data, that this year the longest frost free period was 22 days only.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2019
  10. SpicyDave

    SpicyDave New Member

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    Hi Sulev, I have recently ordered a BTH81 temp/humidity logger and it arrived with no software on it. Any chance you could copy the software from the usb and email it to me? I have tried the manufacturer to no avail, not even a reply from B-side. My email is davewestby7@gmail.com
     
  11. Sulev

    Sulev Contributor

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    Hi @SpicyDave,
    I am glad, that the file I linked to you, worked for you.
    For others, who may meet the same problem, the file can be downloaded from here:
    DataLogger_en
     
  12. Sulev

    Sulev Contributor

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    This season was far from perfect for growing thermophile plants here. The spring was chilly, there were some warm days in the beginning of the summer, but then again there was lack of precipitation. The second half of the summer was rather chilly again, with lot of rainy days. The frost free season was still much longer than previous year, lasting almost 3 months, from June 1-st until August 29th. Last year there was no month without frost.
    My Elitech RC-5 was running from April 8th until September 8th, when the battery got discharged, picking up 14656 data points of air temperature at 15 minutes interval (green line on the graph).
    My Elitech RC-4 was running from April 8th until September 22th, when it run out of memory space, filling all 16000 data points of soil temperature at 15 minutes interval (black line on the graph).
    My BSide BTH-81 appeared to be unreliable again, exhausting the battery several times, so there were large gaps in data series.
    2020season.jpg

    Today I set my thermometers up to record winter temperatures under my figs's protective covers, for my outdoors figs overwintering experiment. I have no high hopes, that batteries will last until next spring, but lets see!
     
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2020
  13. Sulev

    Sulev Contributor

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    For measuring the precipitation I used electronic rain gauge RS3015W this year. It does not have data transmission option to the computer and is not extremely accurate, but it's cheap and records daily, weekly and monthly data for up to 7 days, 7 weeks ad 7 months respectively.
    My curret monthly, weekly and daily data are shown in the combined photo below (red text is added by myself):
    sade.jpg

    mod -- link removed due to it being dead
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 11, 2021

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