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DIY weather station???

Skipper Billy

By Skipper Billy
in DIY Astronomer

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Skipper Billy

Skipper Billy

Posted
Posted

I am interested in having a weather station at home and looking at the ready made ones they very quickly get very expensive!

Does any one know of kits to make one or a resource to build one from scratch??

I am reasonably savvy with electronics and a dab hand with the soldering iron and fabricating things like waterproof housings etc (boatbuilder) and my son is a whizz with programming 'things'.

I would want wind direction and speed, rainfall, temperature and atmospheric pressure and some sort of logging and a wifi connectivity.

Any suggestions??

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JamesF

JamesF

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You can do a lot of stuff with an RPi and a bunch of relatively cheap sensors.  Wind direction and speed is probably the trickiest part, followed by rainfall.  I've recently built a Stevenson screen to house a number of  sensors, with connections to a wind vane, anemometer and rain gauge.  Some of the details I've posted here, though I used some 1-wire based sensors that I already had which is probably not the most cost-effective option if you're starting from scratch.

If you search for RPi weather station there are quite a few projects documented online that do most of, if not all of, what you want.

James

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Gina

Gina

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I have a weather station project but not really done anything to it for some time.  I had an Arduino based logger working a few years ago before the RPi came out.  Not sure whether to use that or start again with the RPi.  My main problem is having too many projects!!

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wimvb

wimvb

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Posted

I'm building a weather station based on an esp32 devkit board that has built in wifi. Sensors are atm:

- BME280 pressure, temperature and humidity sensor (i2c communication) 

- MLX90614 ir cloud sensor (i2c communication) 

- Rain detector (on/off + analog) 

- Anemometer (rs485 communication, ordered but not received) 

I can recommend the esp32, it's cheap, small, and powerful. Plenty of tutorials online. You either use it with the Arduino ide, or micropython. Just one warning, the cheapest devices may not be as stable as the "official" models (espressif, adafruit). 

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wimvb

wimvb

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37 minutes ago, Gina said:

What sort of sensor are you using for the wind vane?

Me? None yet. But if the anemometer works out well, I'll probably get something similar. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Direction-Sensor-Garden-Signal-Aluminum/dp/B07VQ7XTQH/ref=mp_s_a_1_11?keywords=Wind+direction+sensor&qid=1578772188&sr=8-11

This is the anemometer I ordered

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bicaquu-Signal-Aluminum-Alloyed-Anemometer/dp/B07WD8LZD6/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=Bicaquu+wind+sensor&qid=1578772157&sr=8-1

I haven't found much information on these Chinese devices, so it's a bit of a gamble.

The main advantage of i2c/one wire/rs485 devices is ease of connection and availability of drivers. Although as I said, the rs485 is still a bit of a gamble. 

Edited by wimvb
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lukeEdfarley

lukeEdfarley

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I've almost finished mine which i have programmed using an arduino stuck a few bits of sample code together and low and behold it works just waiting for a waterproof box.

it pushes data over Ethernet  to a thingspeak channel found here: https://thingspeak.com/channels/946107  (not currently posting... postage from china is slow)  however you can see from the data that it has been tested.. Note that it is powered off POE

the instruments that are attached to the arduino 

https://coolcomponents.co.uk/products/weather-meters?variant=45223104590&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google Shopping&gclid=Cj0KCQiAgebwBRDnARIsAE3eZjRq_YFXpQOY6nWw2Mamc3M9UD_rvIhB0A7_27_-ovVrTHsouv5umtUaAtvaEALw_wcB

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13956

and the arduino Ethernet shield

if you're interested i can compile a full components list but you get the idea

you said you wanted wifi which i also thought about then i realised that ethernet was also a good power solution :) 

in terms of code attached is a word-pad file (so you don't need to download the compiler to view it) with the code i mashed together... sorry this is less than graceful work aha

I'm then mounting the whole thing on the side of the house so it breaks the crest (hopefully the house wont get in the way of the wind that way) personally ive done bits  with the pi in the past and have found the arduino easier to work with but that's just my preference

hope this helps,

Luke.

 

wordpad sketch copy.rtf

Edited by lukeEdfarley
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Gina

Gina

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3 minutes ago, JOC said:

We got one like this several years ago https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PROFESSIONAL-WEATHER-CENTRE-WIRELESS-N25FR-MAPLIN-BRAND-NEW-IN-BOX/114051149047?hash=item1a8dfa6cf7:g:uc4AAOSwB05eEgIy  I don't think we paid quite that much for ours - I think ours was a recon, but it has really been excellent.

I had two of those (not at the same time).  When the first disintegrated I bought a second.  Then that disintegrated so decided to built my own.

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pete_l

pete_l

Posted
Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, lukeEdfarley said:

in terms of code attached is a word-pad file (so you don't need to download the compiler to view it) with the code i mashed together... sorry this is less than graceful work aha

I see in your code you have RAIN defined as a constant ☔
Surely it can't be that wet???

Edited by pete_l
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lukeEdfarley

lukeEdfarley

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9 minutes ago, pete_l said:

I see in your code you have RAIN defined as a constant ☔
Surely it can't be that wet???

oh whoops mistake number 1 thanks..... on the other hand, I do live in Cumbria and I'm worried it might exceed the memory allocated to a float :)) 

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Islander

Islander

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If you do decide to buy rather than build, I'd recommend the Davis Vantage Pro 2.  I've been running one for years and apart from 2 sets of anemometer bearings, it's been faultless.  There are people on the various forums (Cumulus, WXForum) that make aftermarket data loggers for interfacing to Cumulus.  The initial outlay is high but the reliability compensates for that. :)

 

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wimvb

wimvb

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2 hours ago, JamesF said:

That's quite handy then.  I do want to make an SQM at some point, though it's a way down the list of priorities.  Having other weather-monitoring features is definitely a plus.

James

As long as you limit it to electronic sensors (essentially, no wind sensors), it's really easy. The bme280 (temp, pressure, humidity) , MLX90614 (clouds) and tsl2591 (sqm) are all i2c devices. You just need those, an mcu (again, the esp32 adds wifi, web server, cloud data logging), a lens for the tsl2591 and a box. 

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