[Cialug] OT USB thermometer

[Dave Weis]

That looks like a better way to go, thanks! Will be a good reason to order some new toys!



----- Original Message -----
From: Zachary Kotlarek [mailto:zach at kotlarek.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2013 09:37 AM
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group <cialug at cialug.org>
Subject: Re: [Cialug] OT USB thermometer


On Feb 17, 2013, at 5:59 AM, Dave Weis <djweis at internetsolver.com> wrote:

> Does anyone have a recommendation for a USB thermometer? I looked online and they appear to vary wildly in cost and quality. I would like to stay around $20, it's for an elementary science fair project.



This may or may not be useful for your specific need, but...

There a number of different 1-wire temperature sensors available in the $2-$5 price range. You'll need a bus adapter (~$30 for a USB interface) to hook them up to a computer, but you can connect a very large number of sensors on the same bus if you want to read the temperature in more than one place.

There's good linux support for both the bus in general and the temperature sensors specifically -- owfs (http://owfs.org/) provides a filesystem interface in the style of /sys to communicate with 1-wire devices. The owfs website also has good recommendations for other types of bus masters, should you prefer an Ethernet or I2C or other interface.

USB bus adapter:
http://www.ibuttonlink.com/products/linkusb

Temperature sensor:
http://www.maximintegrated.com/datasheet/index.mvp/id/2815

	Zach