Topic: Want to create a site...

[nincehelser]

Yes, you might be right, either way, Meteobridge is really simple to set up, supports many weather networks, is regularly updated, remotely accessible, supports broad range of HWs, supports HTTP requests, FTP uploads, MySQL uploads etc. etc. so I am by no means saying Raspberry is not good, just that using Meteobridge wont be a bad choice either   

Again, it depends on what you're after.  I prefer an open and unrestricted system with resources, both in hardware and software.  All the necessary software is freely available, too.  You can load your own database.  You can load your own web server.  You can host the whole shebang on one single, inexpensive device the size of a credit card with horsepower to spare. 

It's not that hard to do.

[AjaxKnights29]

Yes, you might be right, either way, Meteobridge is really simple to set up, supports many weather networks, is regularly updated, remotely accessible, supports broad range of HWs, supports HTTP requests, FTP uploads, MySQL uploads etc. etc. so I am by no means saying Raspberry is not good, just that using Meteobridge wont be a bad choice either   

Again, it depends on what you're after.  I prefer an open and unrestricted system with resources, both in hardware and software.  All the necessary software is freely available, too.  You can load your own database.  You can load your own web server.  You can host the whole shebang on one single, inexpensive device the size of a credit card with horsepower to spare. 

It's not that hard to do.

How does the Pi work with the AcuRite?

[AjaxKnights29]

If it is supported than in my opinion yes. Meteobridge can do quite a lot and also, it is a tiny device, which makes no noise, has minimum consupmtion and minimum size and you put that router somewhere near your station and dont even know about it and you dont need your entire PC to be online 24/7. Meteboridge supports built-in sending data to many weather networks, supports all the templates and can even be administered remotely from anywhere through a special URL. Ive had it for 3.5 yrs now and dont have a single day when it wouldnt work!

If I were to get meteobridge could you help me with setting it up and getting it to work with the templates?

[nincehelser]

How does the Pi work with the AcuRite?

Basically you add a second network interface to the Pi and bridge the connections.  Then you attach the Acurite Bridge directly to a wired ethernet port on the Pi.  This lets the bridge talk to MBW and function normally.

A script is running on the Pi that listens to the data coming from the bridge, and converts the data into a simple text file containing temp, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, rain, and station (absolute) pressure.

I use weewx to read that text file and place the data into a local permanent database.  Weewx processes that data as necessary to feed the various weather networks.  It also generates graphs and web pages and puts them on a web server, either remotely hosted or local on the Pi itself. 

There's also a weewx plug-in you can run to generate Weather Display-compatible data for use with various templates : https://bitbucket.org/ozgreg/weewx-wd/wiki/Home

One goal of my setup is to be able to run even if the internet or power goes down during severe weather.  Weewx keeps running (powered by a UPS) and storing weather data in the local database.  When the internet is reachable again, there's a utility called "wunderfixer" that will play back the missed data to wunderground. 

[Jáchym]

If it is supported than in my opinion yes. Meteobridge can do quite a lot and also, it is a tiny device, which makes no noise, has minimum consupmtion and minimum size and you put that router somewhere near your station and dont even know about it and you dont need your entire PC to be online 24/7. Meteboridge supports built-in sending data to many weather networks, supports all the templates and can even be administered remotely from anywhere through a special URL. Ive had it for 3.5 yrs now and dont have a single day when it wouldnt work!

If I were to get meteobridge could you help me with setting it up and getting it to work with the templates?

Of course, but Im sure you would most likely easily finish all the steps yourself, it is very simple and you just follow the steps depending on which router you go for. I have the MR3040 and it was super easy to set up, just flashed the firmware, connected ethernet to modem, set up wifi network, unplugged and plugged in my weather station.... and the rest is just setting up things like language, latitude, longitude, elevation etc. all done in a GUI of meteobridge, for example sending data to WU only requires you to set the interval and your ID etc.

[AjaxKnights29]

If it is supported than in my opinion yes. Meteobridge can do quite a lot and also, it is a tiny device, which makes no noise, has minimum consupmtion and minimum size and you put that router somewhere near your station and dont even know about it and you dont need your entire PC to be online 24/7. Meteboridge supports built-in sending data to many weather networks, supports all the templates and can even be administered remotely from anywhere through a special URL. Ive had it for 3.5 yrs now and dont have a single day when it wouldnt work!

If I were to get meteobridge could you help me with setting it up and getting it to work with the templates?

Of course, but Im sure you would most likely easily finish all the steps yourself, it is very simple and you just follow the steps depending on which router you go for. I have the MR3040 and it was super easy to set up, just flashed the firmware, connected ethernet to modem, set up wifi network, unplugged and plugged in my weather station.... and the rest is just setting up things like language, latitude, longitude, elevation etc. all done in a GUI of meteobridge, for example sending data to WU only requires you to set the interval and your ID etc.

In total it would be $100 for hardware and software right?

[AjaxKnights29]

Is there a way to pull data from wunderground and put it into a template? That would make life a billion times easier!

[nincehelser]

Is there a way to pull data from wunderground and put it into a template? That would make life a billion times easier!

Oh, yeah.  They've got a whole API for that sort of thing, but I'm not sure how well they'd work with the templates you want to use.  There's also a way you can get XML of the current conditions of your wunderground station.  I don't remember what I did to get that to work, though.  A very crude example is on my home page: http://nincehelser.com

The only problem with that approach is that Acurite only updates wunderground every 15 minutes, so you'll probably still want something to update wunderground faster.  If you just want to update wunderground faster, you don't even need weewx.  I've got a beta "parser" script that does that here: http://nincehelser.com/ipwxcode/parser  (I refer to it as "ipwx lite")

[AjaxKnights29]

Is there a way to pull data from wunderground and put it into a template? That would make life a billion times easier!

Oh, yeah.  They've got a whole API for that sort of thing, but I'm not sure how well they'd work with the templates you want to use.  There's also a way you can get XML of the current conditions of your wunderground station.  I don't remember what I did to get that to work, though.  A very crude example is on my home page: http://nincehelser.com

The only problem with that approach is that Acurite only updates wunderground every 15 minutes, so you'll probably still want something to update wunderground faster.  If you just want to update wunderground faster, you don't even need weewx.  I've got a beta "parser" script that does that here: http://nincehelser.com/ipwxcode/parser  (I refer to it as "ipwx lite")

So does it pull data from wunderground or acurite? And could it make data to csv file?

[nincehelser]

Is there a way to pull data from wunderground and put it into a template? That would make life a billion times easier!

Oh, yeah.  They've got a whole API for that sort of thing, but I'm not sure how well they'd work with the templates you want to use.  There's also a way you can get XML of the current conditions of your wunderground station.  I don't remember what I did to get that to work, though.  A very crude example is on my home page: http://nincehelser.com

The only problem with that approach is that Acurite only updates wunderground every 15 minutes, so you'll probably still want something to update wunderground faster.  If you just want to update wunderground faster, you don't even need weewx.  I've got a beta "parser" script that does that here: http://nincehelser.com/ipwxcode/parser  (I refer to it as "ipwx lite")

So does it pull data from wunderground or acurite? And could it make data to csv file?

I'm not sure which part you're talking about. 

The "current conditions" on my home page is pulling data from wunderground. 

The "ipwx lite" script is pulling information from the Acurite Bridge and sending it to wunderground.

I know there's a way to pull down historical data from wunderground, but I don't think it's exactly CSV.

[Jáchym]

My template has a script which downloads all your WU history and you can then use it to build the database

[AjaxKnights29]

My template has a script which downloads all your WU history and you can then use it to build the database

Does it also work with current conditions?

[nincehelser]

Here's a code snip of how I grabbed current conditions from wunderground:

Code: [Select]

<?php
    if(!$xml=simplexml_load_file('http://api.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXCurrentObXML.asp?ID=KNEPERU3')){
        trigger_error('Error reading XML file',E_USER_ERROR);
    }
    $time = $xml->observation_time;
    $city = $xml->location->city;
    $state = $xml->location->state;
    $country = $xml->observation_location->country;
    $lat = $xml->location->latitude;
    $long = $xml->location->longitude;
    $elev = $xml->location->elevation;
    
    $temp = $xml->temperature_string;
    $hum = $xml->relative_humidity;
    $wind = $xml->wind_string;
    $pres = $xml->pressure_string;
    
    echo "<h3>Current weather conditions for Peru, Nebraska:</h3>";

 
    echo "&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Temperature:  " . $temp . "<br/>";
    echo "&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Humidity:   " . $hum ."&#38;#37;<br/>";
    echo "&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Wind:  " . $wind . "<br/>";
    echo "&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Baro:  " . $pres . "<br/>";
    echo "&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; " . $time . "<br/>";
?>

[SpartanWX]

I'd like to piggyback on this thread as it is relevant to my interests.  Particularly the meteobridge aspect.

I currently archive data and feed WU, CWOPS with a Dell Mini 10 Netbook which monitors my wireless Davis VP2.  It chugs away on shelf built under an endtable drawing a meager 6-8 watts. This setup has served me well for many years.  The low power consumption is critical as I try to be mindful of my consumption.

I now have an IPcam and would like to do two things, supply a live stream, as well as a daily time lapse.  Getting a live stream that I can access seems pretty straightforward.  Securely supplying one to the world is a bit more of a challenge.  And creating/archiving/supplying a time lapse is the biggest challenge yet.  It seems like a website would be a key component of this.

Can a meteobridge facilitate any of this video work?  The Dell Minis are solid little PCs but can't take too heavy of a workload.

If I use the meteobridge, would there be a way to pass through the output to VirtualVP on a mini to maintain an local archive of conditions?

Thanks for everyone's help and knowledge. 

[nincehelser]

I'd like to piggyback on this thread as it is relevant to my interests.  Particularly the meteobridge aspect.

I currently archive data and feed WU, CWOPS with a Dell Mini 10 Netbook which monitors my wireless Davis VP2.  It chugs away on shelf built under an endtable drawing a meager 6-8 watts. This setup has served me well for many years.  The low power consumption is critical as I try to be mindful of my consumption.

I now have an IPcam and would like to do two things, supply a live stream, as well as a daily time lapse.  Getting a live stream that I can access seems pretty straightforward.  Securely supplying one to the world is a bit more of a challenge.  And creating/archiving/supplying a time lapse is the biggest challenge yet.  It seems like a website would be a key component of this.

Can a meteobridge facilitate any of this video work?  The Dell Minis are solid little PCs but can't take too heavy of a workload.

If I use the meteobridge, would there be a way to pass through the output to VirtualVP on a mini to maintain an local archive of conditions?

Thanks for everyone's help and knowledge.

The meteobridge is a re-purposed router with very limited resources.  You aren't going to be able to coax it into doing image processing.

[SpartanWX]

I'd like to piggyback on this thread as it is relevant to my interests.  Particularly the meteobridge aspect.

I currently archive data and feed WU, CWOPS with a Dell Mini 10 Netbook which monitors my wireless Davis VP2.  It chugs away on shelf built under an endtable drawing a meager 6-8 watts. This setup has served me well for many years.  The low power consumption is critical as I try to be mindful of my consumption.

I now have an IPcam and would like to do two things, supply a live stream, as well as a daily time lapse.  Getting a live stream that I can access seems pretty straightforward.  Securely supplying one to the world is a bit more of a challenge.  And creating/archiving/supplying a time lapse is the biggest challenge yet.  It seems like a website would be a key component of this.

Can a meteobridge facilitate any of this video work?  The Dell Minis are solid little PCs but can't take too heavy of a workload.

If I use the meteobridge, would there be a way to pass through the output to VirtualVP on a mini to maintain an local archive of conditions?

Thanks for everyone's help and knowledge.

The meteobridge is a re-purposed router with very limited resources.  You aren't going to be able to coax it into doing image processing.

I don't expect it to the bulk of the work, but it does look like it can do some things as an intermediary:

http://meteobridge.com/wiki/index.php/Weather_Cam_Image_Handling

In general, I think I understand a little about setting up the website using the templates.  They seem somewhat straightforward.

The camera stuff seems like more dark arts.  I am wondering how this is facilitated by some of the "off the shelf" stuff people are sharing here.

Thank!

[Jáchym]

Meteobridge is very limited in terms of memory,  the system is not even saved in the router but rather partially downloaded temporarily upon each startup.  And it doesn't archive data either and generates only the absolute basic simple graphs

[nincehelser]

The camera stuff seems like more dark arts.  I am wondering how this is facilitated by some of the "off the shelf" stuff people are sharing here.

There are numerous free tools in the Linux world that can process images into a time lapse.  However, it can be painfully slow on the smaller devices.  Much depends on your settings (e.g. size and quality) and how long you're willing to wait.

[AjaxKnights29]

Meteobridge is very limited in terms of memory,  the system is not even saved in the router but rather partially downloaded temporarily upon each startup.  And it doesn't archive data either and generates only the absolute basic simple graphs

Could you link me to meteobridge software trial link?

[Jáchym]

You have to get one of the supported routers first and then based on which one you chose you download the alternative firmware

[AjaxKnights29]

You have to get one of the supported routers first and then based on which one you chose you download the alternative firmware

Ahh thanks! Well so far website has come along very well! Only one problem is getting my weather station data to it AcuLink bridge reader isnt working and dont have meteobridge device yet

Just really am hesitant on spending around $100 for router and software but I guess it's better in the long run. I also have to move my station. Temps are too high because it's too close to roof.

[AjaxKnights29]

You have to get one of the supported routers first and then based on which one you chose you download the alternative firmware

Which router would you reccomend?

[Jáchym]

There isnt much difference, I simply chose the one that was available in my country.

[AjaxKnights29]

There isnt much difference, I simply chose the one that was available in my country.

Would the DIR-505 work with the AcuRite bridge?

[AjaxKnights29]

Well I've decided to go with MeteoBridge! Setting it up right now!