Now I'm up and running I have a list of applications around the house to start working through. One of the first is to monitor water cylinder temperature.
I can see the external temp sensor in the shop, but wondered what people have used to attach it to the cylinder or pipe work at the cylinder exit?
Any tips?
Re: Attaching thermal sensors to hot water cylinder?
I believe most people use a strap to hold the sensor in place, with some heat sink compound to assure a good thermal contact. I have also seen reports of purpose-designed pockets being used, though these are let into the tank top or sides rather than fixed on the pipework.
Re: Attaching thermal sensors to hot water cylinder?
Yes, I was thinking some kind of thermal paste/ grease and ty-wraps. (with a cover over it!)
Re: Attaching thermal sensors to hot water cylinder?
Hello!
I only used a piece of tape to kepp the sensors in place until the insulation material is in place around the cylinder and the sensors. The insulation will hold it in place forever. The sensors can measure a rise/fall of several degrees per second, but I've never seen such fast changes in my 800l cylinder.
The fastest changes that I measure are the temperatures of the solar system when the sun gets really hot and the pump starts working to heat up the boiler. Then I get 25°C to 60°C in about 90 seconds.
The fastest change in the boiler appears when somebody needs a bath, that can lead to a temperature drop of about 10°C in 10minutes.
So you see: all thermal systems with lots of water are very slow changing systems.
best regards
Juergen
Re: Attaching thermal sensors to hot water cylinder?
my cylinder have a pocket at the top... sadly not at the bottom
i used 2 dallas chips with the flat surface back to back and then heatshrinked it... i needed 2 anyway, one for the OpenTRV board and one for an emontx
fit very snug :-D