I am doing a PhD in Plant Sciences and have to do tissue culture (regenerating plants from single cells) as part of my project. We have been recently been having issues with some of the growth cabinets having cooling/heating issues, luckily people have been in to hear the alarm and move the tissue culture before it gets cooked/frozen and dies. As tissue cultures can take over 1 year to generate a plant and PhDs in the UK are 3-4 years max it is critical to not lose any due to equipment failure.
My project idea is to make sensor units from ATtiny84 (or other cheap microcontrollers) that will report to an arduino hooked up to a server for a web based alert. I already had the arduino (I like to tinker with electronics and programming in my spare time) and have the temperature sensor working on the Attiny84. My problem comes in with wireless communication. I have some rf units but am unsure if they will right for the project as I will have more than 1 sensor, ideally all cabinets ~10 will have sensors. I am trying to keep costs down as I am currently funding the project myself. If I am able to get one unit up and running I should be able to get some of the lectures to buy the rest of the equipment on grants to implement the full network.
Are RF transmitters going to work for this project? I know I would need to stagger times at which they communicate with the arduino
Could I use wifi or bluetooth cheaply? Say under £30 per sensor.
Thank you in advance for any tips, help, and guidance.
I am doing a PhD in Plant Sciences and have to do tissue culture (regenerating plants from single cells) as part of my project. We have been recently been having issues with some of the growth cabinets having cooling/heating issues, luckily people have been in to hear the alarm and move the tissue culture before it gets cooked/frozen and dies. As tissue cultures can take over 1 year to generate a plant and PhDs in the UK are 3-4 years max it is critical to not lose any due to equipment failure.
My project idea is to make sensor units from ATtiny84 (or other cheap microcontrollers) that will report to an arduino hooked up to a server for a web based alert. I already had the arduino (I like to tinker with electronics and programming in my spare time) and have the temperature sensor working on the Attiny84. My problem comes in with wireless communication. I have some rf units but am unsure if they will right for the project as I will have more than 1 sensor, ideally all cabinets ~10 will have sensors. I am trying to keep costs down as I am currently funding the project myself. If I am able to get one unit up and running I should be able to get some of the lectures to buy the rest of the equipment on grants to implement the full network.
Are RF transmitters going to work for this project? I know I would need to stagger times at which they communicate with the arduino
Could I use wifi or bluetooth cheaply? Say under £30 per sensor.
Thank you in advance for any tips, help, and guidance.
£30 buys a whole lot of sensor including the rf. nRF24L01 units are well supported cost about $6 us off ebay as a little 10 pin board. If you want something more ready made check out http://shop.nanode.eu/
They are spaced roughly 5-10 metres apart but this goes around a corner and on both side of the room. Also there is no space for the server in the actual growth room and would need to be in a separate room next to the growth room.
£30 buys a whole lot of sensor including the rf. nRF24L01 units are well supported cost about $6 us off ebay as a little 10 pin board. If you want something more ready made check out http://shop.nanode.eu/
Ideally the sensors would be as cheap as possible hence why I thought an attiny would work best. The £30 would mainly be if RF units were not going to be suitable for multiple sensors in the same room and wifi/bluetooth would be needed instead.