Various Temperature Monitoring

Is it safe to assume that you've never done this before?

Give us some idea of what you really know how to do.

What do I really know how to do?...mmm. I could not put my inquiry any more simple. I am looking for good advice on where to go for control monitoring/data logging of the following;

My professional experience is HVAC, refrigeration and Non Chemical water treatment. Not present day instrumentation. That is why I am here. My boiler project is a simple monitoring and data logging to help make them much more efficient.

Hot water temperature

Water flow under 15 gpm

Outdoor wood fired boiler over fire stack temperature

Outside air temperature and humidity.

I have thought about wireless transmitters reporting to a panel view of some sort.

So, I think this is a funny question that you feel that or assume that I have not done this before. I did not know that would have any bearing on joining up to this forum.

My control experience probably is from before you were born, so all I asked for was advice on new products being that I know what I need to monitor and the need for data will satisfy this.

best regards,

I think that Lyn was not questioning your experience in HVAC, refrigeration, non-chemical water treatment or your knowledge of any of the chemistry, physics and mechanics required to perform in these realms. (All of these are certainly complicated fields in their own rights.) I believe his question was how much experience do you have in instrumentation, electronics, networking, embedded processor or PLC programming, data logging, data archiving and lastly over all system engineering? You see we could recommend the advantages and speed of RISC processing in assembly language with interrupt triggered executions or the higher level programming languages of object oriented code or just the straight forward ladder logic programming capabilities.

As for your control experience, do you prefer your poles in the left or right hand plane? Maybe you prefer to do a Z or gamma transform instead of a LaPlace for your analysis. Remember that your eigen vectors will define the states of your matrix and if it can be controlled or even observed.

Always eager to help,

Having some inkling of your experience would help to know how much tutoring you would need to complete the task before you.

We get people here who don't know beans about a subject asking us how to perform tasks they've never done before.

The form of your question, and the fact that you are not aware of any sources for the instruments you may need would lead any reasonable person to believe that you had never done this before.

That's all.

Can you define your app more closely, perhaps in terms of analog/discrete inputs/outputs required?

So far I see (3) temperatures (analog) and a flow switch (discrete) as inputs. Not yet mentioned are any local control outputs, such as modulating a fire damper in response to the temperatures. (Or a buzzer that tells someone to load more wood.)

I'm not up to date on it, but I think there are Web-enabled PLCs and other microcontrollers that can be accessed from anywhere via cell phone and the like, including password security.

Need more information:

1. Do you have a PLC already?
2. How far away are the return water measuring temps from where the PLC is (or where you would logically place one)? If it's not too far away, you may not want wireless communication.

Any more information you have would potentially be a help in assisting you further.

Most temperature controllers will do if fitted with comm outputs. The manufacture of which has software to monitor their devices from a PC. Now big problem is how do I tell you a supplier to go to get them as you have requested. If I don't know where in the world you are! There are plenty of suppliers online.