Final update until move to final location:
After trial and tribulation the AWS is finally online as of yesterday night 02/02/2024.
Yagi antenna installed for "long range" (160ft from the building) WiFi connectivity - just some $30 one I found on amazon. Was originally to use a Sparkfun ESP32 Thing Plus but the chipset was probably defective and would run a brownout boot cycle when trying to execute the WiFi communication with the antenna. Did a little research and opted for the
QuinLED-ESP32. This board is incredibly high quality and should have no problem operating for long term for the station. This board did also have issues with power consumption so I put a smoothing capacitor between power and ground and that fixed the issue. As with all different boards, the programming was nuanced, and this one was no exception. After troubleshooting the issues and getting everything correctly outputting, inputting, and transmitting online, all that was left to do was plug n play the board into the system.
I made a point to design it for ease of modularity, this being no exception. Took 5 minutes to get the station online and uploading to my webserver. A simple swap of board and program updates and she was good to go.
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Next steps?
The site is a little disheveled with labels as the station location and ID have changed to TRX001/New Truxton, MO where it will permanently reside on a friends property. From there it will remain logging away until we install the infrastructure for a more robust platform in the coming year or so.
This next iteration will be a little more involved. Upon designing it I actually indirectly came to a similar conclusion to a well known AWOS manufacturer Mesotech. Their stand alone DCP design is one I look to adopt and adapt.
- 10 meter wind both mechanical and heated ultrasonic for redundancy in winter.
- 2/9 meter FARS temperature and co-located dew point probes. (Inversion/lapse rate measurements possible.)
- DCP located 2m temp/dew point HMT337 for published thermodynamic obs. (Cables will be extended so the use of FARS for PRT will be possible.)
- 3 pressure transducer redundancy.
- Rainfall (Heated in winter.)
- Solar radiation with class 1 pyranometer.
- 3m Visibility & Present weather.
DCP will utilize a CR1000 and serial to ethernet server for IoT. CR1000 for analog measurements and USR server for serial devices. These will connect to a modem with which an Arduino or some IoT device will scrap from and send to my webserver.
The sort of hierarchy I'm going for follows:
Analog sensors -> CR1000
- Wind Monitor
- Thies Clima Ultrasonic
- Fast Response Thermistors
- Setra Transducers
- Pyranometer
- Rain Gauge
Serial Devices -> USR Serial Server (4 Port RS-232/RS-485/RS-422)
Not sure if the CR1000 will input to the server or if it will connect to the modem directly - up in the air at this point.
What's nice about the HMT is it can output a multitude of parameters including but not limited to Temperature, Relative Humidity, Dew Point, Wet Bulb Temperature, Mixing Ratio, etc. Simplifies processing requirements since the sensor itself does the processing prior to data input.
(May integrate 7 meter UVW wind measurement at some point as well for "research purposes" but that might end up being used for the radiation shield intercomparison down the road.)
Here's an example of a Mesotech AWOS:
I have big plans for the station in the coming years and look forward to documenting its progress. Incredibly blessed to be taking on one of my childhood dreams.
You can find the live station data here:
https://www.met-instruments-project.com/Cheers