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Shirty · 21st Jan 2013, 14:59

One of my colleagues in IT is looking for a cheap way to monitor the ambient temps in our company's server room so that if the aircon dies and the ambient temps rise above a fixed limit he will receive an email to warn him.

There are lots of options, but do the experts at Bit have any ideas? Cheaper the better.

Margon · 21st Jan 2013, 15:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shirty

One of my colleagues in IT is looking for a cheap way to monitor the ambient temps in our company's server room so that if the aircon dies and the ambient temps rise above a fixed limit he will receive an email to warn him.

There are lots of options, but do the experts at Bit have any ideas? Cheaper the better.

This is literally SCREAMING for an arduino

Arduino with a network shield and a temperature sensor and then some fancy coding.

Shirty · 21st Jan 2013, 15:19

And for the IT man who isn't very good at coding?

Jaybles · 21st Jan 2013, 15:23

Google it. :P I'm sure someone has already coded such a thing for the Arduino.

Margon · 21st Jan 2013, 15:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shirty

And for the IT man who isn't very good at coding?

I AM the IT man who isn't very good at coding

Unless it's writing a script, I can write you lots of fancy scripts to do a whole number of things.

I'm not sure, appeal to someone who is good at coding. Loads of people have arduino's and are good at coding - make them write it, or steal it from them, or steal them and get them to write it at knife point. Worlds and oysters Shirty :P

Shirty · 21st Jan 2013, 15:36

I think the major issue with the Arduino route (which I can see would be by far and away the cheapest) is the warranty and technical support that IT departments seem to like on all their hardware, so that they have something to fall back on when they **** up

Mankz · 21st Jan 2013, 15:39

Temp probe + cable from server room > readout wherever he is...

Unless he wants it over a network..

Shirty · 21st Jan 2013, 15:52

I think it's for night time and weekends when nobody is on site. They currently have two separate aircon units keeping the room at 18 degrees so it's complete overkill of course, but the concept is for something to email him when the ambient temperature exceeds say 25 degrees, so that he can come into the office and investigate.

theshadow2001 · 21st Jan 2013, 16:09

If its mission critical he should get someone in to do it properly. Any industrial controls company should be able to do this but obviously you'll be paying quite a bit even for something as simple as this project.

If not do a little research on an arduino. You could use a raspberry pi either and a temperature monitor. Temp goes up monitor turns on an output, pi reads it (through some small interface electronics.) Program on pi signals SMTP server on the pi to send an email to whoever.

The programming is not going to be insurmountable and will probably be reasonably simple.

When it comes to interfacing to something that will send an email its unlikely that you can avoid programming. Especially if you are trying to do it on the cheap or can't afford an off the shelf solution if it even exists.

Dudey109 · 21st Jan 2013, 16:19

I assume theres a temperature sensor somewhere in the room already? On the aircon panel or something similar. Cheap solution stick a webcam pointing at it.

Or i just found this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PC-Laptop-...709#vi-content

Or as said an Ardunio or raspberry pi for more features/expandability

Shirty · 21st Jan 2013, 19:53

Thanks for all your help folks.

Professional solutions are available, but they seem to start at around £150. This is probably what he'll go for, was really just wondering if anyone had any specific recommendations based upon experience.

Atomic · 21st Jan 2013, 20:18

We've got some nice little temp monitors at work, they defiantly do email alerting as we found out on Friday when the heat exchangers iced over and the aircon shut off! They also do nice graphs that look pretty on our stats screens

Not sure on the model but I'll check tomorrow when I'm in. I can't imagine they would be that expensive as we don't have massive budgets.

Shirty · 21st Jan 2013, 20:37

Cheers fella.

saspro · 23rd Jan 2013, 16:09

TemPageR do these. Cheap enough & can set to email you

Shirty · 24th Jan 2013, 08:12

Thanks sas, he hadn't come across that firm in his research and was interested to see this option - so you might well be the winner (of some rep at least

).

Atomic · 24th Jan 2013, 10:03

We use these:

http://www.theclimate.co.uk/product....category_id=-1

Bit more expensive than I thought at retail but we bought quite a lot in one got so got a chunky discount.

21st Jan 2013, 14:59	#1
Shirty Good news everyone! Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Salisbury, UK Posts: 5,623	Cheap way to monitor server room temps remotely One of my colleagues in IT is looking for a cheap way to monitor the ambient temps in our company's server room so that if the aircon dies and the ambient temps rise above a fixed limit he will receive an email to warn him. There are lots of options, but do the experts at Bit have any ideas? Cheaper the better. __________________ 2500K \| Corsair H55 \| HIS 7950 \| 8GB XMS3 \| 128GB Crucial M4 \| Samsung 2TB \| ASRock H77M-ITX \| Corsair CX500M \| White Bitfenix Prodigy \| Dell U2311H \| Creative T6060s \| Ducky G2 Pro TKL (Reds) \| Logitech G500 Why.

21st Jan 2013, 15:19	#3
Shirty Good news everyone! Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Salisbury, UK Posts: 5,623	And for the IT man who isn't very good at coding? __________________ 2500K \| Corsair H55 \| HIS 7950 \| 8GB XMS3 \| 128GB Crucial M4 \| Samsung 2TB \| ASRock H77M-ITX \| Corsair CX500M \| White Bitfenix Prodigy \| Dell U2311H \| Creative T6060s \| Ducky G2 Pro TKL (Reds) \| Logitech G500 Why.

21st Jan 2013, 15:23	#4
Jaybles J Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Somerset, UK Posts: 927	Google it. :P I'm sure someone has already coded such a thing for the Arduino. __________________ i7 950 @ 3.8 1.192v\|Noctua NH-U12P SE2\|Asus P6X58D-E\|12 GB DDR3 1600\|1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3\|Samsung 830 64GB\|XFX Double D R7950\|Asus Xonar DG\|Antec Quattro 850w\|Bitfenix Colossus\|Dell U2311H\|Dell E173FP Steam\|PSN:nythraln

21st Jan 2013, 15:36	#6
Shirty Good news everyone! Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Salisbury, UK Posts: 5,623	I think the major issue with the Arduino route (which I can see would be by far and away the cheapest) is the warranty and technical support that IT departments seem to like on all their hardware, so that they have something to fall back on when they **** up __________________ 2500K \| Corsair H55 \| HIS 7950 \| 8GB XMS3 \| 128GB Crucial M4 \| Samsung 2TB \| ASRock H77M-ITX \| Corsair CX500M \| White Bitfenix Prodigy \| Dell U2311H \| Creative T6060s \| Ducky G2 Pro TKL (Reds) \| Logitech G500 Why.

21st Jan 2013, 15:52	#8
Shirty Good news everyone! Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Salisbury, UK Posts: 5,623	I think it's for night time and weekends when nobody is on site. They currently have two separate aircon units keeping the room at 18 degrees so it's complete overkill of course, but the concept is for something to email him when the ambient temperature exceeds say 25 degrees, so that he can come into the office and investigate. __________________ 2500K \| Corsair H55 \| HIS 7950 \| 8GB XMS3 \| 128GB Crucial M4 \| Samsung 2TB \| ASRock H77M-ITX \| Corsair CX500M \| White Bitfenix Prodigy \| Dell U2311H \| Creative T6060s \| Ducky G2 Pro TKL (Reds) \| Logitech G500 Why.

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21st Jan 2013, 15:39	#7
Mankz dat steak Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: SW1H Posts: 13,519	Temp probe + cable from server room > readout wherever he is... Unless he wants it over a network..

21st Jan 2013, 16:09	#9
theshadow2001 Ultramodder Join Date: May 2012 Posts: 1,000	If its mission critical he should get someone in to do it properly. Any industrial controls company should be able to do this but obviously you'll be paying quite a bit even for something as simple as this project. If not do a little research on an arduino. You could use a raspberry pi either and a temperature monitor. Temp goes up monitor turns on an output, pi reads it (through some small interface electronics.) Program on pi signals SMTP server on the pi to send an email to whoever. The programming is not going to be insurmountable and will probably be reasonably simple. When it comes to interfacing to something that will send an email its unlikely that you can avoid programming. Especially if you are trying to do it on the cheap or can't afford an off the shelf solution if it even exists.

21st Jan 2013, 16:19	#10
Dudey109 Multimodder Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 185	I assume theres a temperature sensor somewhere in the room already? On the aircon panel or something similar. Cheap solution stick a webcam pointing at it. Or i just found this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PC-Laptop-...709#vi-content Or as said an Ardunio or raspberry pi for more features/expandability

21st Jan 2013, 19:53	#11
Shirty Good news everyone! Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Salisbury, UK Posts: 5,623	Thanks for all your help folks. Professional solutions are available, but they seem to start at around £150. This is probably what he'll go for, was really just wondering if anyone had any specific recommendations based upon experience. __________________ 2500K \| Corsair H55 \| HIS 7950 \| 8GB XMS3 \| 128GB Crucial M4 \| Samsung 2TB \| ASRock H77M-ITX \| Corsair CX500M \| White Bitfenix Prodigy \| Dell U2311H \| Creative T6060s \| Ducky G2 Pro TKL (Reds) \| Logitech G500 Why.

21st Jan 2013, 20:18	#12
Atomic Gerwaff Join Date: May 2002 Location: Norfolk, UK Posts: 8,935	We've got some nice little temp monitors at work, they defiantly do email alerting as we found out on Friday when the heat exchangers iced over and the aircon shut off! They also do nice graphs that look pretty on our stats screens Not sure on the model but I'll check tomorrow when I'm in. I can't imagine they would be that expensive as we don't have massive budgets. __________________ :: ASUS Maximus IV GENE-Z :: i5 2500K @ 4GHz :: 16GB Corsair Vengeance :: 256GB Samsung 830 :: :: Awesome, Reliable Website & Server Hosting ::

21st Jan 2013, 20:37	#13
Shirty Good news everyone! Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Salisbury, UK Posts: 5,623	Cheers fella. __________________ 2500K \| Corsair H55 \| HIS 7950 \| 8GB XMS3 \| 128GB Crucial M4 \| Samsung 2TB \| ASRock H77M-ITX \| Corsair CX500M \| White Bitfenix Prodigy \| Dell U2311H \| Creative T6060s \| Ducky G2 Pro TKL (Reds) \| Logitech G500 Why.

23rd Jan 2013, 16:09	#14
saspro Infrastructure Specialist Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Kingston upon Thames Posts: 8,497	TemPageR do these. Cheap enough & can set to email you __________________ If what I've said helps you please remember to hit the rep button on the left Missing the old meeting place? Find us here

24th Jan 2013, 08:12	#15
Shirty Good news everyone! Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Salisbury, UK Posts: 5,623	Thanks sas, he hadn't come across that firm in his research and was interested to see this option - so you might well be the winner (of some rep at least ). __________________ 2500K \| Corsair H55 \| HIS 7950 \| 8GB XMS3 \| 128GB Crucial M4 \| Samsung 2TB \| ASRock H77M-ITX \| Corsair CX500M \| White Bitfenix Prodigy \| Dell U2311H \| Creative T6060s \| Ducky G2 Pro TKL (Reds) \| Logitech G500 Why.

24th Jan 2013, 10:03	#16
Atomic Gerwaff Join Date: May 2002 Location: Norfolk, UK Posts: 8,935	We use these: http://www.theclimate.co.uk/product....category_id=-1 Bit more expensive than I thought at retail but we bought quite a lot in one got so got a chunky discount. __________________ :: ASUS Maximus IV GENE-Z :: i5 2500K @ 4GHz :: 16GB Corsair Vengeance :: 256GB Samsung 830 :: :: Awesome, Reliable Website & Server Hosting ::