Hacker News Reader

Comment by protomyth | Hacker News Reader

I am looking for a solution to monitor the server room's air conditioner. I would love to use a Raspberry Pi, but I need to find an anemometer[1] for it.

1) I am going to monitor if the air conditioner is blowing and page if it is not. Paging someone earlier than the temp change does.

View on HN

An Arduino might be more ideal solution for that. There is a huge collection of physical measurement devices for it and it would probably would be easier to implement with that. I'm not sure you can get an anemometer for it but a bit of tinkering would probably yield an equally effective solution. Sparkfun has a bunch of accesseries you can browse through.

Might be worth going commercial with this, there are already some good well-developed devices for environmental monitoring.

I'm a fan of the WeatherGoose / MiniGoose / WatchDog: http://www.itwatchdogs.com/product-detail-weathergoose_ii-1....

Can email, send SNMP traps, expand to multiple sensors easily, &c.

You don't want to monitor if it's blowing, since the unit could still be blowing air, but not cold air. Instead, monitor the temperature coming out of/in the the duct. The temperature change in the duct will allow for a page just as fast as monitoring the flow.

This will also allow you to monitor things such as the delta of the air coming out of the duct vs the ambient temperature vs the air going into the return. With this data you can create significant savings by moving ducts or equipment since you're probably wasting a lot of good, cold air going into the return.

It will also be cheaper. A lot cheaper.

I've got temp sensors in the mix, but I can have the same temp near the duct for a bit after the blowing stops. I also want to make sure the blower stays at the same rate and isn't sputtering.

How about monitoring the compressor itself and not it's output? Maybe a hall-effect sensor attached to the outside of the unit could work?

I cannot make alterations to the environment or put stuff outside, nice thought though.

// ND -40F in winter - not allowed to cut holes in wall and no extra power outside.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com