Arduino Based Weather Station

[Gina]

Here is a new design for the main casing.  Bottom view and top view.  The hole near the mast is for a USB cable to connect the Arduino Nano to the RPi in the ASC.  There will be a tube glued onto this casing going up the the ASC casing.  This will also provide additional support and stop the wind sensor unit from sliding down the mast.  The notch in the side of the hole for the anemometer and top wind vane axle bearing is for flat cables from anemometer and rotation sensor.  Printing time for this is 2h 37m and will use 49m of filament.

 

Edited December 10, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

Print is showing rather a lot of curl at the mast end   Just a little at the other end.

[Gina]

15mm printed and the mast end is about 7mm off the bed   Other end is about 2-3mm.  Probably have to reprint it using brim - I think it will just about go on the bed if I move it a few mm towards the near left corner.  I'll let this print finish as I can use it to check out other things.  There's quite likely to be something else wrong with it

Edited December 10, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

Hmmm...  2/3rds printed and the curl is really getting serious with less and less still in contact with the bed.  The print is liable to fail due to coming adrift from the bed before it's finished   Looks like I may have to print it in two parts (making three parts including the bottom cover).  Guess I could try with higher bed temperature.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

75% and still stuck to the bed.  The curl is horrible!!!

[Gina]

Finished!  Without coming off the bed

[Gina]

Talking of bed - I'm for mine

[Gina]

Apart from the curl which reduces the strength of attachment to the mast, the print is pretty good.  But that curl does make the item unusable as the top (bottom in printing) is not at right-angles to the mast.  A complete redesign is indicated.  I think I shall combine the bracket with the bottom of the ASC.  Also, although the size of the hole is a nice fit on the aluminium tube I'm using for the mast, I think I shall add a clamping arrangement.

I might change material for the final print.  Two ideas on this - PET-G for its greater strength or white ASA for it's UV tolerance.  I guess the UV resistant ASA wins overall but I've not used it yet so will need to change the print settings and do some test runs.

[Gina]

This would be the sort of look.  Probably the top image - reprinting as little as possible (I haven't printed to casing of the latest ASC design yet).

Edited December 11, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

Since I'm no longer making the casing and bracket as one print, here is another idea.  With the anemometer moved further away from the ASC, the affect of the ASC on the anemometer should be much reduced and only with the wind in a particular direction.  It makes the construction much simpler.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Gina

[Stub Mandrel]

12 hours ago, Gina said:

75% and still stuck to the bed.  The curl is horrible!!!

AARGH!

I've had so many bulky prints fail that way in big or small ways I now use a brim and remove it with a deburring tool. Virtually guarantees adhesion

[Gina]

I use a brim a lot but thought this print had enough area to stay put - I was wrong!

[tekkydave]

I have started using a brim on every print. I started doing it when I was printing the DBot parts on my old Prusa in PETG. I carried on even with PLA and now just do it regardless.

[Gina]

Wind sensor bracket and base of ASC.

[Gina]

Wind sensor bracket and base of ASC.  Could be a bit longer and still fit on print bed.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

Wind sensors casing.

[Gina]

Now making a test print of the bracket and ASC base which will take 2½ hours.  Meanwhile here's a photo of the present casing and anemometer.

[Stub Mandrel]

LOL that 'warp' looks like good design! You cshoudldn't have told us.

If I have a view like that, I'd clean the window

[Gina]

Still getting curl and separation from the bed in spite of brim   This is with the blue ABS.  8MM lift out of 24mm.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

This is definitely not acceptable.    Maybe I'll try the ASA and see how that goes.  Settings are supposed to be similar to ABS but with a lower hot end temperature.

[Gina]

I'm also going to try a change in the model.  The greatest curl or lifting off the bed is when the item is high at the extremities.  This ti the model I'm going to try with the ASA filament.  This should test two things at the same time - the use of ASA and the change of model.

[Gina]

First layer of ASA didn't stick to the bed so I've increased the temperature from 100°C to 110°C and trying again.

[Gina]

Slight adhesion but nowhere near enough so increasing bed temperature to 120°C and filament to 240°C.

[Gina]

No good - trying higher temperatures...  Comparing ASA with ABS, it seems the temperatures are very similar, so since I found I needed 260°C filament temperature for ABS I'll try the same for ASA.  I have no idea of the accuracy of the thermistors in use.  They're not known for high accuracy

Edited December 11, 2017 by Gina

[Gina]

Looking better - time will tell   At least it didn't come off the bed after printing the brim.  Still on first layer ATM.  I run the first layer at much reduced speed to help with bed adhesion.