Red Feline Thermometer - USB digital thermometer using ATTiny microcontroller
Red Feline Thermometer is a USB termperature sensor. It is designed to be used
attached to a computer for logging applications. It can be fitted into small
enclosures such as a 35mm film canister which can be easily weather proofed in
order to measure outside temperatures.
The associated host program can be used to perform semi-automatic single ended
calibration or, for greater accuracy across a wide temperature range, manual
two point calibration. The host program can also read the data from the device
presenting on standard output allowing additional tools to be easily written
to log data in any manner desired.
It could be used:
to maintain long term records the outside (or inside) temperature,
to graph the heating/cooling cycle of domestic heating systems,
to compare the heating/cooling cycles of different rooms in the
houses (in order to tune the radiator valves),
Both the firmware source code, host driver source code and the stripboard layout diagrams are found in the same tarball. Windows users can use 7-Zip to decompress the package.
Why does the temperature under read when I first plug in the device?
The circuit used by the device is very simple, consisting only of
a voltage regulator, the USB circuit, the microcontrolle and the
temperature sensor. The design includes no compensation for startup
when the power disipation inside the enclosure causes the air
temperature within the enclosure to heat up. This results in
significant (>10 degree) underreading in the twenty minutes
after the device is plugged in. The circuit is designed for long
term environmental monitoring to the warm up time, whilst
inconvenient, but does not prevent the device from being used as
intended.
What's in the release?
circuit/ contains the stripboard layout diagram.
driver/ contains the host driver program.
firmware/ contains the source code for the firmware.
firmware/usddrv/ contains the USB driver that drives the communication with the
host computer.
The README contains the entire documentation (apart from this web page).
COPYING contains licensing information. The license for RFThermometer allows
you to provide copies of the program to anyone you think might like it
(with or without charge) but does require that you inform them about the
license (by providing them a verbatim copy) so they understand that they
also have permission to distribute it. The pre-amble to the license
provides more details on the purpose of the license.
Why did you pick that name?
'redfelineninja' is an anagram of my own name together
with that of my wife. Since the program is hosted at
www.redfelineninja.org.uk
the name of the program seemed very obvious.
order to measure outside temperatures.
The associated host program can be used to perform semi-automatic single ended
calibration or, for greater accuracy across a wide temperature range, manual
two point calibration. The host program can also read the data from the device
presenting on standard output allowing additional tools to be easily written
to log data in any manner desired.
