Ok Gang - I came here to get some guidance - I've been interested in Arduino for a while, but never had a good solid project to build, and lo and behold, one crops up at work.
My office has a need for temperature monitoring in our server room, since our IT Staff is centrally located over an hour away, and we sometimes have AC failures/power spikes/etc.
I'm thinking Arduino + Ethernet + LCD + some sort of temperature sensor/thermistor for hardware.
Software would be fairly simple - monitor temperature, output the results to the lcd in the server room, and possibly to an html page I can display on a computer elsewhere in the office in near realtime.
It would need to send out an email to an emergency group (aka those who live near the office) if the temperature in the server room reaches 90° and again if it reaches 100°
Any advice? Do I need to adjust my thinking during the planning stage?
Any better combinations of hardware for a more efficient/economical build are encouraged!
The arduino with an ethernet shield can operate as a server and a client at the same time. should be able to serve up a page with current temperatures as well as send an email when some value is exceeded.
Awesome... OK - now what about temperature sensor? Anybody use one they like? Can I get one of these cheapo single wire digital ones and find a library for it, or are there more user friendly options for a first time programmer?
for the temp sensor, I have been using ds18b20 from dallas/maxim for about two and a half years now, very reliable and while I did find them difficult in the beginning, they are very versatile.
As long as you dont use the parasitic mode, very little goes wrong, and the only use one arduino pin.
There is also a nice library availeable.