Richbandit

Hi Andy, Yes, I initially looked at the powerline option as well, and I wonder if a variation to your solution might work for me .... I can place a powerline adapter right next to the mini-pc (it's in a 'distribution box' I made which I place near mount, spare mains sockets available in that) and connect the mini-pc directly to it with ethernet cable, so no need for wi-fi. The mains supply to this distribution box is taken from a socket in nearby laundry room, which is on the same mains circuit as house. Then, another powerline adaptor near my laptop and job done, also using ethernet connection and remote desktop. That should theoretically work away from home as well, as long I ensure both adaptors are 'linked' by the same power circuit! Only thing is, I use Voyager (moved from SGP over a year ago and not regretted it!) at home, and I tend to select and frame a target using its excellent 'web dashboard' which has a brilliant 'virtual field of view' feature. To do this, it requires an internet connection to download the respective object data, image, etc. and I'd lose that option if I employed my suggestion - although I guess I could switch over to the mini-pc's wi-fi for that purpose, as per Peter's method. Irrelevant away from home, as no internet anyway so I'd have to pre-plan target info. - suppose I could alternatively use planetarium (Stellarium, Cartes Du Ciel, etc.) instead to get info in this instance? All food for thought!

Hi Peter, Just stumbled across your post .... Out of interest, what sort of range are you finding with this little TP-Link unit? In a similar way to you I have an mini-PC near the 'scope and currently relying on my home internet router (Talk Talk supplied) as the wi-fi link between my laptop indoors and mini-pc outside. As far as I know the Talk Talk router is reputed to be a fairly good one, but I still experience annoying 'drop outs' from time to time. So, I'm looking for any alternative solutions ..... the attractiveness of something like this is that it could still be used away from home if needed. Thanks!

Hmmm .... thanks for the info skybadger. So in your experience when configured correctly looks like it does work as expected then. My sensor is open to the elements, just inserted into a hole in the top of the enclosure. So I wonder if that creates too much of a viewing angle (standard sensor is 90 degrees FOV I believe) in that case - compared to your approach anyway? Maybe I also need to 'concentrate' the FOV? I've also fitted a small piece of EeonTex High-Conductivity Heater Fabric around the sensor, to ward of any dew forming. I simply cut a tight fitting hole in the centre of a 2cm square piece and feeding 3 volts across it, then placed sensor through the hole in this with an insulation layer (to stop any electrical shorting - small piece of baking paper!) and subsequently through the hole in the top of the enclosure, so the insulation layer and heater fabric is 'sandwiched' between the sensor pcb and the underside of the enclosure body - seems to work nicely as far as I can tell! Difficult to measure accurately, but this probably raises the temperature being recorded by the sensor a little, but then I should be able to compensate for that by adjusting the threshold value accordingly. What I can't figure out yet is why I saw similar readings for 'daytime cloudy' last week compared to my 'night time clear' yesterday evening? More testing necessary .... Out of interest, skybadger, what sort of LED lens have you used on yours? Richard

Guys, I followed this thread towards the end of last year and being intrigued I went ahead and built this as per spec - only recently been able to test it for calibration (had cloud, rain, cloud, more rain, for what seems months!). So far seems its operation may be a bit unpredictable, as described below, but I need to do more analysis to clarify that! Not sure if anyone will still be following this thread after all this time, but this is my update so far for anyone who may still be interested .... Basically, the system worked first time - brilliant. What I have noticed, however, is how sensitive the MLX90614 sensor actually is! I have it mounted on top of my 'cloud sensor' enclosure pointing vertically straight upwards as required, this enclosure is in turn is mounted on the side of a portable box I use to contain power supply, mini pc, router, etc. which I normally place adjacent to the 'scope + mount when I hook everything up. This evening was clear (the first decent clear night for ages) so decided to set just the box up outside to assess the 'night time, clear sky' readings (no mount/'scope). This was positioned about 3 metres from the rear of my house on patio, with the cloud sensor box located on the side facing towards the house - I tend to do it that way, so the mini-pc would also face the house in that orientation, ensuring good wi-fi reception to my router. To start with, it seemed the sky reading was somewhat 'warmer' temperature (~ -13 degrees C or so) and, with the ambient reading ~ +8.9 degrees C or so, the Ave. Diff. was thereby wobbling around the cut-off value, causing periodic unsafe conditions to be registered even thought the sky was perfectly clear. By chance, I then turned the box around by 90 degrees so that the sensor was on the 'away from house' side and immediately the sky temperature dropped dramatically to around ~ -20 degrees or lower! This allowed the Ave. Diff. to change quite soon to a higher value, meaning it was more above the 'safe' limit than before .... In other words, I can only presume that the sensor must have been susceptible to the radiated heat coming from my house (?), and turning it away from the house has allowed it to read the sky more accurately? I don't know, only presuming here .... In any event, a daytime 'cloudy' measurement I managed to do last week resulted in about the same Ave. Diff. readings as I'm currently reading this evening after I turned the box around! So, I'm not totally sure what this means - is the technology or the theory not as accurate or reliable as it could/should be? Should we therefore expect to take these readings with a pinch of salt, not to be relied upon completely? To be fair, I haven't yet had an opportunity to do some night time, cloudy (and dry!) readings for comparison yet, so I guess that might be the proper comparison test against this evening's results. If anyone's interested, I'll try to report back here with more info if/when I get it! Stay safe, Richard