Implementation of Temperature Monitoring System in Seaweed Drying Room

Abstract

It is necessary to install a monitoring tool to improve the quality of seaweed dried in the drying room of Agricultural Technology Education, Engineering Faculty of Universitas Negeri Makassar. This drying room utilizes a solar dryer as the primary source of heat. This study aims to build and develop a monitoring system in the seaweed drying room. The methods used in this paper have been designed method consisting of two parts, such as hardware and software design. The hardware is an electronic board composed of sensors, Arduino Mega, driver relay, display, RTC, SD card, and power supply. All these kits are connected with various functions in a system that records temperature data in real-time. The software is an Arduino IDE with an integrated program to record temperature data every 15 minutes and show it on the GLCD. The monitoring circuit’s testing results and the controlling system showed that it could function well indicated by the implementation without technical obstacles. The results showed that the highest temperature and the smallest humidity in the drying room were 63.77 oC and 17.25%, respectively, and occurred from 11:45 to 12:15. The average temperature and humidity of the air in the drying room during the study were 51.04 oC and 34.7%, respectively. Based on these values, this system can help the process of air circulation in the drying room and optimize the drying process of seaweed.