“The aim of this project is to design, build, and test a low-cost measurement system for Building Performance Evaluation studies that includes at least temperature, relative humidity, illuminance, and is extensible to additional sensors, and to develop the prototype of these devices.
This results in a customized and affordable system that enable stakeholders conduct the measurements required for building performance evaluation in an efficient and affordable manner by logging multiple environmental parameters at once. The Open Source Data Logger (OPENSDL) developed was compared against a HOBO U12-012 data logger. This commercially available counterpart system, can measure 3 parameters, namely- temperature, RH, and illuminance, and one external channel for other sensor types. A different sensing device would be required for measurement of any other parameter. The characteristics of parameters to be measured are limited to the proprietary hardware and software, which restricts the system to measuring of certain parameters with specific accuracies. A HOBO U12-012 costs around ₹13,000 (US$ 185), whereas the OPENSDL costs ₹4,605 (US$ 66), which is almost one-third of the commercial counterpart.
An open source data logger for monitoring temperature, RH, and light levels (illuminance) with the help of an Arduino Uno This is a DIY for developing the OPENSDL data logger.
Time required: 2-3 hours for soldering, 5 hours for packaging (4 hours - 3D printing, and 1 hour for laser cutting) Skills required: Soldering, little or no knowledge in programming and electronics
Parts required:
Arduino Uno with cable
Data logger shield
CR1220 coin cell battery
BME280 temperature humidity pressure sensor breakout board
TSL2561 light sensor breakout board
ESP01-8266 Wi-Fi module
RJ-9 male and female connector
Shield stacking headers for Arduino
SD memory card (any capacity)
Vector board (26 x 18 holes)
8 AA batteries Battery holder
Required Tools :
Soldering iron (35W)
Solder wire
Wire cutter
Crimper tool
Multimeter
Software required: Arduino IDE (1.0.5 or higher)
Arduino libraries used:
Wire library
SparkFun TSL2561 library
Cactus BME280 multisensor library
SD card library
SPI library
RTC library
Note: The BME280 sensor is a very accurate, temperature, relative humidity and pressure sensor from Bosch. Similarly, the DS1307 is an accurate real time clock from Maxim and the TSL2561 is an accurate light sensor. There are less expensive and less accurate alternatives for these products, but this tutorial was aimed towards people who were interested in gathering data for building performance evaluation and building monitoring applications that require high precision and accuracy. This means that any specific hardware setup and software setup (libraries, program code) was strictly meant for the specified products only.”