There are a lot of different ways to do this. You can
spend a lot of money and not so much time, or a lot of
time and save some money.
PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) are well suited
for this sort of thing. They will take in data from
your transducers and come equipped with all kinds of
switching relays and analog outputs. Look at
automationdirect.com
If you are planning on making money off this venture
and can't afford to be screwing around with things
that don't work for whatever reason, that is the best
way to go.
Altenatively you could buy a microcontroller kit,
learn to program it and get some D/A converters for
your signals, but you will probably spend a bunch of
cash on that too.
I do data acquisition and control with a program
called LabVIEW, that runs on a PC. It costs $3000 and
it lets you do all the PLC stuff, but with user
interfaces and a graphical programming language.
Omega.com is a good place for industrial transducers.
Another thought is to post to a hydroponics group.
They do exactly what you are doing but for hundreds of
acres of hothouse vegetables.
=]
Matt Hill
--- paksao@... wrote:
Hi I am a new guy here and to electronics. But I'm
hoping to learn
enough to complete some projects I have in mind.
I'm interested in setting up a system that will
control a vivarium
temperature humidity, lights pumps , etc and do it
based not only on a
schedule (ex mist 3 times a day) but also on the
current conditions(
ex too hot -> mist run fans,cut some lights). I know
I have a long way
to go before I could build it from scatch. So the
plan is to learn
the individual pieces then put them together.
some of the parts I need
build a circuit to control a relay to turn on and
off a light or pump.
build a circuit to monitor and display temp
build a circuit to monitor and display humidity
build a circuit to monitor and store temp ( probably
need a pic or pc)
build a circuit to monitor and store humidity (
probably need a pic or
pc )
...
...
Any suggestions on where to get started?
I already have some basic soldering skills and
programming skills but
i need to do a lot more.
Hope fully I can start to pick up some of what I
need here
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