Topic: My Custom Weather Station in Sunny Yuma Arizona

[weathernick]

Here is my homemade weather station using a Raspberry Pi to collect all the data from the sensors.

The sprinkler box that contains the Raspberry pi, datalogger board, and power.


Here is my homemade FARS. Double wall construction with a 70mm fan up on top.


Wind sensor mounted on top of my house. Would mount it higher but I am scared of highs and currently happy with the data produced by it. Currently it is 3-4 feet above the ridge line. Placing it around 30ft high.

Wunderground: KAZYUMA27
CWOP: EW5462
Weewx Page: http://weathernick.github.io

[Bushman]

Pretty slick!  Is it wireless?

[weathernick]

It uses wifi for network but it's power source comes from a GFI socket inside the enclosure. I may place it on solar but my power has been very stable at the house so I haven't the need yet.

[WDoug]

What are you using for wind sensors?  I'm interested in building a speed indicator using an analog meter for the readings; old school display.

On a separate note,  I went to your web sight to look at the setup.   Now, I know you live
in Yuma, and it gets as hot there as it does in Phoenix,  but you really should turn on your air conditioner.   Temperatures in your home like this aren't healthy.      138 degrees??????

[weathernick]

What are you using for wind sensors?  I'm interested in building a speed indicator using an analog meter for the readings; old school display.

On a separate note,  I went to your web sight to look at the setup.   Now, I know you live
in Yuma, and it gets as hot there as it does in Phoenix,  but you really should turn on your air conditioner.   Temperatures in your home like this aren't healthy.      138 degrees??????

Wind sensors I got from Gary Stofer over at http://wunderweatherstation.wordpress.com/. They are nice sensors but only the wind direction is analog. You would most likely need to build an interface to convert both outputs(wind speed and direction) to something usable to your gauges. Mr. Stofer was very helpful with all my questions and I liked his prices.

As for the inside temperature, I am really an iguana.  In reality it is the temperature of the Raspberry Pi's CPU inside the enclosure.

[geofb13]

I like the set up Nick. I've been using Raspberry Pi's this growing season up here near Montreal to do some sensor work for soil moisture, along with temperatures, humidity, leaf wetness. I'd like to set up a Raspberry Pi station for my apartment here but I know that the data would be suspect at best.

I just have one question which I'm pretty sure I know the answer but why do you keep the Raspberry Pi outside? I know it's enclosed and I assume it's because you're directly wired to the breadboard but I didn't know if you had any other reason besides that?

Still I like the setup and maybe one day I'll be in a location where a station would make sense where I can do this for myself. Until then though I'm going with a combo rain gage and sensor moisture sensors for the home garden to set it up with a water pump so that if I inevitably forget to water my plants that they don't suffer.

[weathernick]

I like the set up Nick. I've been using Raspberry Pi's this growing season up here near Montreal to do some sensor work for soil moisture, along with temperatures, humidity, leaf wetness. I'd like to set up a Raspberry Pi station for my apartment here but I know that the data would be suspect at best.

I just have one question which I'm pretty sure I know the answer but why do you keep the Raspberry Pi outside? I know it's enclosed and I assume it's because you're directly wired to the breadboard but I didn't know if you had any other reason besides that?

Still I like the setup and maybe one day I'll be in a location where a station would make sense where I can do this for myself. Until then though I'm going with a combo rain gage and sensor moisture sensors for the home garden to set it up with a water pump so that if I inevitably forget to water my plants that they don't suffer.

For me it was convenience to set it up outside. I could have place the RPi inside the house but then have to deal with routing all the cables into the house. With how my house is setup there was no easy way to do this and keep the WAF high (Wife Acceptance Factor).

I would love to expand my sensors to include soil moisture. With that information I could use OpenSprinkler Pi to control my irrigation based on weather conditions.

Nickolas

[geofb13]

I understand about the looks entirely haha. Just some food for the future if you already have the bread board outside and want to still have the wires out there too you could hook something like an xbee unit up to it either in the 900mhz range or higher flavor (if you wanted to keep the Pi as the interface or if you wanted to connect via your wifi directly). You already have all of the settings figured out so that wouldn't be an issue. I just say that as I'm hoping for next year to use some extra xbee's that I have for that exact purpose with the self-watering config.

[weathernick]

I understand about the looks entirely haha. Just some food for the future if you already have the bread board outside and want to still have the wires out there too you could hook something like an xbee unit up to it either in the 900mhz range or higher flavor (if you wanted to keep the Pi as the interface or if you wanted to connect via your wifi directly). You already have all of the settings figured out so that wouldn't be an issue. I just say that as I'm hoping for next year to use some extra xbee's that I have for that exact purpose with the self-watering config.

Thse xbee's are sweet. I have though about deploying remote sensors all over the place... We will have to see what the future holds.

Nickolas

[vinceskahan]

Nick - pretty cool project - you should set your site to register it on the weewx map.  Set registration on in weewx.conf and reset your software.  Liked the photos a lot !

I'm guessing you didn't really have 12+ inches of rain one day it was 105 F out in August.

[Randall Kayfes]

First, thank for sharing the great photos of your setup.
Second the setup look great and well thought out.
Finally scared of heights - well I am not very scared until I have to do some work and tooling around and then I am right there with you!

Thanks again for sharing the photos!

Randall

[weathernick]

Nick - pretty cool project - you should set your site to register it on the weewx map.  Set registration on in weewx.conf and reset your software.  Liked the photos a lot !

I'm guessing you didn't really have 12+ inches of rain one day it was 105 F out in August.

No idea why it isn't reporting. I though I had that turned on... Not very high on my priority list right now but when I have time I will check it out.

As for rain... that took me forever to fix. Turns out you really should place capacitors (filters) on digital input lines. We haven't had a thunderstorm in a while so that will be the real test. The last storm we got in the first week of December showed correctly against my Cocorahs rain gauge.