Reddit reviews Vktech DS18b20 Waterproof Temperature Sensors Temperature Transmitter (5pcs)

Note, links here with a [!] are ones not in the album.

• Starting off HERE we have a view of the entire area. On the left is my rack topped with HP 1020, semi-dead retired PS3, and Netgear R6300v2, a few parts and tools. An HDMI switcher sticks out the back waiting cable management and routing to a shelf up front, also exposing IR receiver for it for manual control although it auto switches to the latest turned on device.
  
  Off to the right is a desk which has been converted to a ghetto entertainment center. I'd rather buy servers than furniture! My apartment is absolutely tiny anyway, like 600 SQFT. Logitech 2.1, Dell S2740L. I'd not pay that much for a dashboard monitor, but, I use it for media as well, so the price of it new when I got it, nearly 450 after taxes/shipping, was worth it.
  
  
• Over HERE a second R710 sits unused while I get another iDRAC chipset for it, and maybe another motherboard for it. Maybe. It works with it's damaged RAM channel but limits it's expansion. We'll see.
  
  
• HERE is my GLORIOUS GRAFANA SETUP! This is displayed on the Pi, refreshes every 30 seconds, data is dumped every minute to InfluxDB, some graphs use ELK Stack, and the Pi in addition to showing this uses a cronjob to dump temp/humidity data. A more detailed screenshot is HERE From left to right, top to bottom, you see,
  
• Power Usage, stats pulled from OpenHAB (more below)
  
• graphs of Humidity from an AM2302 sensor. I'll release Python sources when I'm comfy with them, r/Homelab will be the first to see 'em, no worries.
  
• A bunch of single-stat charts showing "right now" data: Rack intake temp, Rack exhaust temp, C-temp INSIDE the rack, Power Draw, and firewall incoming packets rejected over the last 5 minutes. More on this later.
  
• Stack-graph of intake and exhaust temp over time. Shows me how much "heat" is being shoved out the back better, visually. And I can see when I'm doing crazy stuff on CPU loads ;) - the sensors used here are THESE DS18B20's from Amazon. So easy to get working because it's 1Wire.
  
• Then I graph "ambient"-ish sensor data from my IPMITool dumps. A cronjob runs THIS[!] command every minute, and dumps the sensor data. The data in this graph is backplane, motherboard, ambient temps, etc. Nothing "Hot."
  
• Then, I graph the "hot" data - IO Controller hub, RAM, CPU cores, etc. Unfortunately the R710 and R210 don't have any hot data? Just ambient, and that's it. Boo!
  
• Next up, fan speeds. I consider this important and bolded the lines of fans that I've swapped so I can make sure they don't fail.
  
• "Ports" blocked is wrong, it's packets. This graph is polling Elasticsearch which gets pfSense firewall logs. It then graphs ICMP (Ping) requests it's rejected, and all other Layer4 packets on a separate line.
  
• Then, another Elasticsearch graph showing packets that have passed through - I only have three ports exposed - two RDP and one PPTP for when I lab at work. I want to see when my RDP sessions are being messed with, so I graph both of them. A management VM runs on the standard port, and a "production" (file/print/dhcp/dns/iSCSI) RDP session for "emergencies" runs on a nonstandard port.
  
  The last two graphs honestly tell me a LOT. ELK Stack is WAY more powerful than I thought. Unfortunately I don't like how Kibana's dashboards look, so save the geoIP stuff, I am using Grafana all the way. TODO: Get the Pie chart plugin working!
  
  
• THIS is my OpenHAB setup. Pardon the bulges on the side, screencaps from an S7 Edge, stitched together. Top down:
  
• Scenes (off/sleep/wake/work[all on])
  
• a 2800 Lumen living area light
  
• an RGB (though locked to single color due to limited OpenHAB2 support for this particular model) bulb behind the monitor seen HERE[!]
  
• An Ikea dome lamp I ripped the mains socket out of and replaced with LED strips, powered by an ESP8266 and custom driver circuit. Communicates via MQTT with a server, Mosquitto, on a VM. Sits above my bed. Reowr.
  
• AUX Power is for my hydroponics setup. I'm a basil/pesto nerd.
  
• Server rack power "right now." updates every 15 seconds.
  
• AUX Control controls the water pump for hydroponics. It's on a 1hr OpenHAB "cron" rule to water itself.
  
• Server Control, expanded upon HERE
  
• Network devices lists me and my SO's laptop and phones, and an NZXT H440 tower I built that we share. Seen here in an old photo playing Jak X at native speed, woo!
  
  
• HERE is a view of the rack, with THIS bandana I am in love with. The 4.3" LCD is THIS model LCD panel. It's disabled as the Pi outputs to HDMI, but I'll get SNMP graphs going on it when I get a second or even more Pi's.
  
• This LCD was previously used for a DIY snake climate control system, but I had to abandon my snake when I moved a year ago :(
  
• The setup was HERE[!] - old photo showing semi-complete. Eventually had it fully coded. This is a tkinter GUI and a PID control algorithm PWM'ing a heating mat for his cage.
  
• HERE[!] is a better view. I could VNC in to change his thermostats.
  
• BOY[!] did it fucking work great or what. HERE was a primitive Apache script charting the temps stored in SQLite via PYGAL. Note that the second plots are days at a time. The first is a plot of data over weeks. The dips are me resetting the script for improvements.
  
  
• HERE is the top of the rack with ghetto-WAP and HP laser printer. Semi-dead PS3, some spare PSUs, tools, PATCHKABEL, etc etc.
  
  
• HERE she is herself! Top down of the rack as follows,
  
• 1u HP ProCurve 2810-48G. I love this thing man.
  
• 1u Cheapo Ebay wannabe NeatPatch that cost me like 20 bucks.
  
• 2u Keystone inserts with one-off stuff like the modem, NUC, Pi, jacks in the back, routed up front for easy access.
  
• Blank
  
• 1u Shelf, left: Surfboard Modem, right: Intel NUC 5i3RYH. Pardon the 1/3-unit offset! It's trashy, I know, but the NUC is too tall >_<
  
• 1u Shelf, Sager NP3260 (Clevo W25AES) laptop. Used as a media center machine. Kodi, browsers, etc.
  
• 1u empty, awaiting rails for the R210 to mount it here.
  
• 2u empty, soon to house the second "spare" R710
  
• 1u currently holding the 210 on a shelf, soon to just hold tools or cables when the rails arrive...
  
• 1/3u reserved 1u, shelf.
  
• 2u, C2100 48GB RAM, 2xL5630, 3x1TB, 2x250GB, 1x160GB internal, soon to have an additional 30GB ssd when I prep it. Runs ESXi, virtualized FreeNAS w/ HBA Passthru.
  
• 2u R710 in good condition. Both this and the spare R710 rock an X5550 with 24 GB RAM. This currently has 4x 10K drives, soon it'll be 2x in each 710 as local storage. This in addition to the C2100 will be my vCenter Server lab, with vCenter Server itself running on the R210 (along with my management VM).
  
• 1u empty
  
• 1u blank
  
• 1u times two PDUs; outlets are at a premium even though I don't even use that much power!
  
• 1u empty TODO get a UPS in there.
  
• HERE is the MESS of wiring I hide by shoving this at a wall. Why I monitor the temps lol. You also see the HDMI switcher free-floating, and an HDMI Keystone in the next image below. I intend to shelf-mount the switcher up front for access, but eh, cables are thick, lazy, haven't gotten that far yet.
  
• HERE shows the quick disconnect and patch keystone at the bottom rear. So I dont need to rip my modem out if I wheel the rack around. I built it for portability, even though it never moves. For modularity, I left the input and output of the POE injector in the rack for my work-from-home phone. Hence the 5-inch loop connection.
  
• HERE is a glory shot of the trio of cables running along the wall. 2 data to my desk, 1 coax to the wall.
  
• HERE shows the HDMI switcher which is missing one port. Pi, Sager Laptop, and soon to be VM with Passthru. It switches automatically to the newest source, but I leave the remote handy in case I need to switch it myself. So, it shows the dashboard at all times, and if I fire up the media center with the remote keyboard, it shows that. If the media center goes to sleep, back to the dash. Also intentionally using Grafana because it's gorgeous dark theme.
  
• HERE shows my zen area booting up the best workhorse a man could ever buy himself - a THINKPAD! \ o /
  
• HERE I kick it back staring at the IT equivalent of paint drying.
  
• Since I work night shifts and sometimes even from home, I have curtains to isolate this area from the rest of my studio apartment.
  
  ---
  
  Power is metered/controlled with THIS switch. Make sure you have no way of shutting this off! Else you cut power to the whole lab. So far it hasn't had any random-shutoff issues. So I'm happy.
  
  This lab has taught me A TON, entertained me during off hours, given me uninterrupted sanctuary, prepped me for exams, and everything. After I get MCSA, the R710s + C2100 will be clustered to teach me much more advanced stuff for VCP5/VCP6 study.

I'm a fan of the DS18b20s, I don't use the land line in my house so I disconnected the phone line at the junction box outside, put Rj-11 connectors on the end of some ds18b20s and viola whole home temperature readings for about $10! One wire for the win! Vktech DS18b20 Waterproof Temperature Sensors Temperature Transmitter (5pcs) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CHEZ250/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_um4Gyb2TX32HQ maybe a little more than $10...

I used DS18b20 Temperature Sensors. I tied them down to each component. It's difficult to see in the gif, there is a small aluminium cylinder on top of the CPU heat sink. That's the module.

I'm just about to leave town for a few days, but I'll link you what I have so far. Here are the various parts I am using:

This pump for water

This power supply for my 12v items

This relay board to control valves and the pumps

And these valves

an esp8266 for wifi connectivity with main control computer

Several of these ds18b20 temperature sensors

And these water level float sensors

Beyond that, its just arduino stuff and glue logic, like shift registers and whatnot.

EDIT - also the usual electric brewery stuff, ie water heater elements. Those I've wired to relays to be controllable by the arduino as well.

I had parts laying around so I decided to build a temperature monitor instead of having multiple individual thermometers. My buddy wanted one and i thought, "these have to be a thing", but i cant find them. It seems like the only product that has multiple temperature probes is an expensive controller.

Does anyone know if these things exist on the market?

For those interested, this is just a led segment display, arduino, and i2c temperature probes. You could build this for $20 - $30. I have the code but would encourage someone to try it on their own, its a pretty good beginner project.

Yes, I will post a link. Red breadboards are just for convenience. One has 16 resistors. You need 1 resistor for each relay because relays are 3.3v and board is 5v. 1K to 3K seem to do the job. And the other board only has 3 connectors for DS18b20 Waterproof Temperature Sensors along with 10K pull down resistor.

Mostly Wemos D1 Mini and whatever USB supply I have at hand (have had good luck with Motorola dual-ports). I like the idea of the Feathers, but haven't run into an application yet for myself where I want to put up with periodically recharging the device.

For indoor temp/humidity sensors, Amazon seller HiLetgo (and probably others) sell a D1 Mini shield with a DHT22 prewired to D4. Between those parts and ESPEasy, it takes about 15-20 minutes to put a new sensor together.

For outdoor and remote temp, I grabbed a 5-pack of ds18b20 probes from Amazon. Each probe has a unique ID in rom which ESPEasy honors, so multiple sensors can be wired in parallel (on the same bus) and still be read separately. For ease of wiring, D3 supplies the power, D4 is the data (pulled up by the LED), and GND on the Mini is right next to D4.

All publish to Mosquitto, of which Home Assistant is a subscriber.

I would say about $25-$30 with parts and everything. Once you have the code for one, putting it on others would be quick and simple. It would be a good option for future projects as well since you could just add other things to the board.

Screen

Temp sensor

I will find the script in a bit but basically you take a DS18B20 temperature sensor and hook it up to the GPIO pins. In some part of whatever Raspberry Pi distribution config utility you're using, will be an option to enable I2C connectivity.

Basically you run the cat command to get the temperature of the sensor, have a script to write that to a file with a timestamp, and make a cron job to run that every minute. You can then have another script to alert you if the temperature gets above a certain level. Some temperature logging tutorials want some sort of SQL but you can do this without it.

edit: here's the pastebin with the two scripts. The cronjob entry looks like this:

> * /root/thermcron.sh

Why didn't you just go with a pre-made and cheap option? Waterproof DS18B20's are all over the place. I use these for the monitor on my reeftanks which would arguably be a much more harsh environment than a greenhouse.

DS18b20 Waterproof

If you're after quick and cheap, then you could do worse than the Ds18b20 sensors in the waterproof housing ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CHEZ250/) - they use the 1-wire protocol so are easy to get working with the devices you're looking at using.

If you want something a bit more substantial and industrial, DM me and I'll contact some of our suppliers to get some options for you.