Dear Cristin,
I haven’t worked with any products by Lascar but I
have seen the information online for the EL-USB-2 on the web and think that it
looks like a viable product. Several years ago I did a comparison of a
number of loggers. The document is available on the internet at the
National Park Service Conserve-O-Gram site at
http://www.cr.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/03-03.pdf
Some of the products I reviewed I would definitely not
recommend and others I would for specific purposes or needs. There are
several Hobo lines though Onset and, given their price and reliability, I have
found them the excellent value for money and appropriate for general
datalogging needs. The company also offers very good support.
As a result they are widely used in the museum community and compatible with
software like the Image Permanence Institute’s Climate Notebook
program.
To combine this answer with another related posting –
the uses for the Arten RH Thermohygrometer and a psychrometer are, obviously,
different than a datalogger since neither of these ‘logs’ any
readings. The Artens are primarily geared to providing an accurate,
cost-effect and sort of low-tech method of giving a spot check on temp and
RH. They are widely used in display cases as they are small and
unobtrusive and do not need to be accessed frequently. They will
generally last forever as there is no battery or parts to break. It is
recommended that they be calibrated twice a year or at least once a year and
calibration kits are available.
There are reasonably priced handheld digital
thermohygrometers that can be used on the go but for pure accuracy and
reliability you cannot beat a psychrometer. The psychrometer is the only
way to really ever gauge the accuracy of any other secondary environmental
monitoring equipment such as the Arten thermhygrometer, hygrothermograph or
logger. You can’t go wrong when you are going back to the pure
psychometrics and a wet and dry temperature reading. This should be an
essential piece of equipment to check the accuracy of any other monitoring
equipment that you may have. Then you can at least have confidence in
anything else that you might find more user friendly for use in the field.
Feel free to contact me if you require more in depth
information. If you do purchase a Lascar I would be grateful to know your
thoughts on the process as I field a lot of questions about loggers and like
being up to date on what people are using.
Best,
Rachael Perkins Arenstein
Conservator
Art Preservation Services
tel: 212-722-6300 fax: 212-427-6726
www.apsnyc.com
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2006 13:38:29 -0600