I responded to Hannah privately, but I also suggested plasti-dip like I did for my research. So to answer your comment Clayton, the coating has to be peeled off to work in the reader. Once you make a small tear in it then it is easy to remove so not too big of a deal, but it is very tedious if you have tons of data loggers. I also had attached some from trees using plastic baggies as the Caroline mentioned trying. The most successful I was in regards to not losing data was double coating them in plastidip. Since I had some buttons not coated and others coated I was able to compare the data to see if coating them skewed the data, and I found it did not. My method for attaching them was by using plumbers putty (cement) and it worked very well.
On Wednesday, July 23, 2014, Clayton Kingdon <[email protected]> wrote: > My lab has successfully used iButtons in the past. We suspended the them > in trees (top, middle, bottom of canopy) and placed them on rebar ground > stakes. We needed them to be out for about 3 months so we set the logging > interval accordingly. > > The approach I took was to protect them rather than make them waterproof. > An earlier respondent used plastidip, but -- and I can't remember exactly > what the USB button reader looks like -- I would think this might prevent > them from fitting into the reader. > > I've included some pictures of what our setup looks like (pics won't be up > forever). > > https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11663005/IMG_20140723_144449.jpg > https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11663005/IMG_20140723_144531.jpg > https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11663005/IMG_20140723_144612.jpg > > I used 3M command adhesive tabs to fasten the iButtons inside 1 1/4 inch > PVC caps. I chose flat-bottom caps rather than curved caps. I drilled a > small hole through the top of the cap, threaded string through the hole, > then tied knots to keep the cap from moving on the string. > > After all this, the caps were covered with foil duct (not Duck) tape .. > the kind used for sealing HVAC ducts and car exhaust pipes. This was to > reflect direct sunlight and allow each iButton to record near-ambient > temperature. Avoid using the stuff with text on it, is shown in the > pictures. > > The 3M tabs made it so the iButtons could be removed without damaging them > or leaving residue. I considered using hot glue, but didn't think it would > hold. I've since learned that there is some kind of industrial-strength hot > glue that may have worked. > > We lost only one or two buttons because the 3M adhesive failed, more > because they became entangled in trees. I believe that we were able to read > data from all the buttons we recovered. > > I remember the software being pretty easy to use, though tedious to > program > 100 buttons. > > HTH, > ck > > -- > Clayton Kingdon > UW-Madison, Department of Forest & Wildlife Ecology > -- Amberly R. Moon
