Kibler electronics has supported many different electronic systems in the last 30 years of hands on experience. "I find myself wondering what to do next, when so much of the industry is using shrink wrapped systems for control work." It turns out there is still a few areas with limited commercial appeal and support. One of those areas is using linux to do data collection and logging.
What got me going was a friends new house - it had a heat problem. During summer months of this new house, controlling the temperature got to be a major problem, mainly because we had no idea what the attic and second floor room temperatures were at any given time. Thus I offered up the idea of putting together some temperature sensors and hook them into one of his computers.
I spent serval spare months looking at possible devices and other company's products. Generally speaking I found only very expensive components that would make the whole project prohibitive to do. About to give up, I did another search and this time found a simple and cheap kit that was exactly what I was looking for.
I am now working on Data logging using a simple serial device and temperature sensors. I found this serial data logger home page and I am using it now. So far it has been fun, easly, and simple to build, test, and use - what more could you ask for.
At the moment I suggest you follow the links and go buy one of the kits from the suppliers listed - I did. It took 10 minutes to build, and about the same time to assemble the temperature sensors with the desired length of cable. They have been running for some time now without issue. I will have more information later, as I continue to branch out and try more ways of using the DS1880 devices.
See a table of voltages/currents of my solar PC arry.