Using the Parallax Internet Netburner Kit ( Pink) to store temperature variable

Joe

Hi,

Only to know if it possible to store temperature variables for a long
time ( one year).

For this purpose I need about 500 variables. Do you know If
the Pink module could do that. ?

( How can I increase variables of the Pink ? )


Thanks, Joe
PS: I need a lot of variables because they are more
than one reading per day.

Mike Green

1) There's no way to increase the number of variables (other than the manufacturer changing the firmware).

2) The Stamp can only store values in RAM which disappear if the power goes off. There are only 100 variables
each of which can hold up to 64 bytes (Read the documentation!)

3) You will need to store your temperature information somewhere else. You can attach various kinds of flash
memory to a Stamp and store your data there. The Nuts and Volts column #115 discusses how to do this
with a BS2. The BS2p series have built-in I2C statements which can be used for writing to flash memories.

4) If you only have about 500 values and they're 16-bits or smaller, you can easily store them in the Stamp's
EEPROM program memory using the READ and WRITE statements. You do need to be careful in that the
EEPROM locations can be rewritten only about 100,000 times before they start to "wear out". It's easy to
exceed this if a program bug in a loop writes to the same location over and over again. Writing once or
twice a day won't cause problems. You'll need about 1000 bytes of unused memory. Since there's only
2048 bytes available in a BS2, that can be a squeeze if you don't have a simple program. You can get more
memory by switching to a BS2e or BS2pe (or really anything other than a plain BS2). Look at the READ
and the WRITE statements in the manual.

skylight

although probably not practical due to cost,I'm under the impression that more than one pink can connect to the BS2 (with adequate power regulation) and you can address the data to say 5 connected pinks using the ip address of each in turn or do a check for variable 100 to see if it has data then increment the last part of the ip address to move data to the next free pink and so on.

Chris Savage

The only reason you’d want to store all the values on the PINK is if there was some reason you’d need to be able to display them all at the same time on a web page. I suppose if I was faced with this task I would attempt to display them 100 at a time and fetch them from either the BASIC Stamp EEPROM or the Memory Stick Datalogger to re-populate the internal variables one page at a time.

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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support

LoopyByteloose

The iButton Thermochron will store a years worth of temperature data and you could interface to the PINK via a BasicStamp for control and downloads.

I am assuming that the 500 variables are temperature samples.

The iButton also time stamps each and can operate completely independent on its own internal lithium battery. It is a combination real-time clock, data logger, and temperature sensor.

Try talking to Dave at www.logictechs.com for getting one quickly. He is a lot friendler that Dallas/Maxim

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PLEASE CONSIDER the following:

Do you want a quickly operational black box solution or the knowledge included therein?······

···················· Tropically,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan

mediaprefect

Joe,

Just in case you don't need it to be connected to a LAN, and just need simple logging, Lascar Electronics makes a temperature logger the size of a fat ChapStick which will run on an internal battery and holds 16,000 readings (EL-USB-1). The data is accessed by downloading through it's USB connector. They cost about $80 and have graphing software included. [noparse][[/noparse]www.lascarelectronics.com] They have on which does temp and humidity logging too. It's just another option. I was looking at them for checking out the temperature in clients' racks to see what kind of temperature/time profile their equipment had to endure.

But that would take all the fun out of developing it yourself. Chris Savage's suggestion of the Parallax Memory Stick Datalogger sounds like the way to go for storage, if you build it yourself. I can't help with that though, UPS just delivered mine a few days ago.

By the way, to save on memory usage, if you plan on time/date stamping your readings, you could get by on recording the time/date for the only the first reading each day or even once a week if you are only taking maybe 4 readings per day. But then with a 1GB USB drive in the Datalogger, you can bury yourself in readings before it get's full.
There are only 5.3E5 minutes in a year if you want to take a reading once a minute and plot smooooth graphs.

How about posting a bit more detail on what you are trying to accomplish?

Rick B