I bought four ER14505 LS14500 AA 3.6V 2400mAh lithium batteries and battery holders for PCB and thought I should use the rest of my Moteinos. I had three of them laying around that I don't use.
For this project I use the same code as my other sensors around the house, so the only job was to get it on a vero board, solder and box it. Since the LS14500 battery works down to -40 degrees Celsius, it will do just fine in the deep freezer.
So, after nearly a year running my first Moteino temperature sensors I have finally deployed a new range of sensors. These new sensors have the possibility to connect the following sensors:
After about 100 days using the Moteino to log temperatures and humidity I have started a new project. Actually the batteries are still going after 100 days (Well, almost). The new project will again use Moteinos, but this time I will upgrade the whole thing. In addition to temperature and humidity logging, I will add a display and a barometric pressure sensor. I will write the code so it's easy to add other sensors, like rain, flood, plant humidity, light conditions etc.
Last night my wireless temperature sensors suddenly stopped working. Since all of them stopped at the same time, I thought it was the receiver connected to my server. Then I discovered that the Nexa remote switches didn't work either... They run on the same frequency as my temperature sensors. They worked if I held the remote very close to the receivers. That can only mean there is severe RF noise on 433MHz.
It's time to show off the temperature sensor for use around the house. The box I crammed this in, is a lot smaller than the one I used outside. The sensor, and the Moteino, is working great. Take a look at the images below. The readings are published on Thingspeak.
The outside node is finished, and put to use. As spring is approaching this will be okay, but I don't think the batteries will be happy during winter. That's a problem I will take when "Winter is coming", to quote a popular TV show
Now I have a few prototypes ready and working. It took me a while. I ran into a problem when connecting a USB Moteino to my server. It works OK in Windows, but I needed it connected to the Linux running in VirtualBox. The problem is that the Moteino USB did not reveal itself as a /dev/ttyUSB0. It turned up as a /dev/ttyS0.
As I have several projects down the line I had to start somewhere. In this project I will build a wireless temperature sensor system. The main goal of the project is to be able to see the temperatures in several rooms at home when I'm away. I will also have a temperature node outside.
To manage this I will use Moteinos. I spent some time trying to find the best hardware for this. Before I decided I looked at XBee, JeeNode, PanStamp among others. They all have their uses, but I felt that Moteino would do the job best for this specific project. For later projects I just might try out the PanStamp as well.
