Author Topic: My highly modified Davis station  (Read 3272 times)

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Offline flyingvranch

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My highly modified Davis station
« on: October 01, 2022, 08:50:33 PM »
I finally got around to re-building my station. I modified the station to transmit 1/2 mile between the ISS and my console. I relocated the station to a remote area on my ranch next to my garden and orchard and everything is solar powered. I have been running it for a month with no big issues so far. For a detailed tour of the station go to my blog; https://ki5omm.budbrinkley.com/ To see the website in action go to https://weather.budbrinkley.com/

I'm running a Raspberry Pi 3 and Weewx software with the Belchertown skin. I also have a web cam set up to provide a short time lapse view. I have been using Weewx for nearly a year and it has proven to be very robust and easy to manipulate. I finally figured out the database scheme, but I still have issues trying to edit out bad data. I suppose I'll eventually get it figured out.

Today was the first official day to start a new database after all the testing etc., so there is not much to see at the moment. Hopefully I can keep everything running smoothly in the future.
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Offline flyingvranch

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2022, 08:53:48 PM »
I don't have a clue as to why my photograph is sideways. I'm too tired and computered out to mess with it. LOL

Offline andro700

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2022, 01:37:12 PM »
Very nice set up. Great mods to make things work for you. Very clean website.

Chuck

Offline TMThomson

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2022, 11:20:06 AM »
Great looking website! Can you provide any info on how you put together your website? I don't currently operate one, but am starting to look into it. Thanks or any info you can share.

Offline vinceskahan

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2022, 05:08:08 PM »
Great looking website! Can you provide any info on how you put together your website? I don't currently operate one, but am starting to look into it. Thanks or any info you can share.

Looks like it's just weewx plus the Belchertown skin.  Hundreds of folks run the same (great) setup.  Thousands run weewx.

Weewx docs start at https://weewx.com/docs.html -  The FAQ is at https://github.com/weewx/weewx/wiki/WeeWX-Frequently-Asked-Questions and the wiki is at https://github.com/weewx/weewx/wiki/WeeWX-Frequently-Asked-Questions if you wanted more info.  The primary source of help is the weewx-user google group at https://groups.google.com/g/weewx-user

Given a little Linux expertise it's about a 5 minute thing to set up weewx locally if you have any kind of unix/linux capable computer like a pi or better.


WeeWX sites:
  Davis VP2+DFARS to a pi4
  EcoWitt GW1000, WH32 outdoor T+H, multiple WH31 indoor T+H, WH51 soilMoisture, WH34 soilTemp (pi4)
  Davis AirLink (inside)
  PurpleAir (outside)
Home site:        https://www.skahan.net/
Wunderground: KWAFEDER15
PWS:                KWFEDER15
CWOP:              CW6881

Offline flyingvranch

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2022, 08:55:47 PM »
Sorry for the late reply.

Yes my weather website is just WeeWx alongside the Belchertown skin. I am running these on a Raspberry Pi 3b and uploading to my server every 5 minutes. The links offered by vinceskahan pretty much sums up where to look for these resources.

My blog is a simple Wordpress site using a basic theme (2019 I think).

Offline weatherdoc

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2022, 07:05:31 AM »
The WeeWx interface is nice and there are others to checkout like PWS Dashboard (https://pwsdashboard.com/) and Saratoga Weather (http://saratoga-weather.org/wxtemplates/install.php).

My pwsdashboard is here: https://novawx.dscloud.me/pwsWD/index.php
My main page uses the Saratoga Weather template, powerful but more complicated, in my opinion: https://novawx.dscloud.me/index.php

Offline TMThomson

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #7 on: November 02, 2022, 08:31:22 AM »
Sorry for the late reply.

Yes my weather website is just WeeWx alongside the Belchertown skin. I am running these on a Raspberry Pi 3b and uploading to my server every 5 minutes. The links offered by vinceskahan pretty much sums up where to look for these resources.

My blog is a simple Wordpress site using a basic theme (2019 I think).


Would I be able to feed my data to a website like this using the WiFi Logger2 or would I need another type of device?

Offline vinceskahan

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #8 on: November 02, 2022, 02:35:20 PM »
Would I be able to feed my data to a website like this using the WiFi Logger2 or would I need another type of device?

Sure - it emits MQTT and weewx can be set up to subscribe to MQTT topics.

Some sample sites I found in a brief search are https://weather.ghammer.net/about/ and https://www.rainierviewweather.com/about/ but it can be a little difficult to contact owners of sites.  Suggest asking on the weewx-user google group for somebody to post an example weewx.conf showing how they hooked things up.

WeeWX sites:
  Davis VP2+DFARS to a pi4
  EcoWitt GW1000, WH32 outdoor T+H, multiple WH31 indoor T+H, WH51 soilMoisture, WH34 soilTemp (pi4)
  Davis AirLink (inside)
  PurpleAir (outside)
Home site:        https://www.skahan.net/
Wunderground: KWAFEDER15
PWS:                KWFEDER15
CWOP:              CW6881

Offline TMThomson

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #9 on: November 02, 2022, 03:49:38 PM »
Thank you!

Offline gszlag

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #10 on: November 03, 2022, 11:41:23 AM »
Although your situation will be different than mine. I wrote a how-to regarding a custom local install of the WeeWX/belchertown skin(thanks to vinceskahan for his help).

You may find it useful to get you going. Not sure what your computer skills are but mine are low (baby-step low).The "how-to" does have some tips/examples that should save you some time. In some parts, you will also need to follow Pat O'Brian's installation guide.
Good luck!
See: https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=43377.msg441806#msg441806
Ambient Weather WS-2000
Ecowitt WS3900 console
Ecowitt GW1000/GW1100
Ecowitt WS68: Anemometer, UV/solar
Ecowitt WH40: Rain gauge
Ecowitt WH57 Lightning sensor
Ecowitt WH32E: Outside T & H sensor
Stratus Rain Gauge (manual)
Raspberry Pi 3B+ (WeeWX/CumulusMX)
Raspberry Pi Zero 2W (WeeWX/MQTT/Belchertown)
---
Barometer wiki: http://meshka.eu/Ecowitt/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=barometer#barometer
---
http://weather.glenns.ca (pwsdashboard - live)
http://weewx.glenns.ca
http://glenns.ca/cumulusmx2/index.htm
---
Uploading to: AWN, ecowitt.net, Weather Underground, PWSweather.com, AWEKAS, Windy.com, WOW

Offline TMThomson

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #11 on: November 03, 2022, 12:24:37 PM »
gszlag,

One other question... will I have to have a computer up and running 24/7 to make this work?

Offline gszlag

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Re: My highly modified Davis station
« Reply #12 on: November 03, 2022, 02:26:19 PM »
gszlag,

One other question... will I have to have a computer up and running 24/7 to make this work?
I have run this skin both as a public web site(see how-to Part II) and as a local install on my home network.

If you want to create a public web site that everyone has access too, you will need to run WeeWX (with the belchertown skin installed) 24/7 on some sort of computer that is uploading your weather station data continuously to a web host.

The computer does not have to be expensive but you should have a dedicated computer just for this purpose.. You can use a raspberry pi microcomputer (unfortunately, unobtanium at the moment) or almost any old desktop or laptop computer that can run linux.

Or if you want to experiment, you can install linux on a usb drive and run it from a Windows machine. I believe WeeWX can also be installed directly on a macbook.

My "test bed" machine is a full install linux distribution on a USB flash drive attached to an old macbook.

Depends what your needs are. Right now, belchertown is running locally on a raspberry pi (zero 2W) on my flatscreen TV with an audience of exactly two eyeballs - a really big display console!

I would suggest installing and running belchertown locally on your network. You will learn a lot.

Creating a web site is a bit more work. Remember - baby steps first!
Ambient Weather WS-2000
Ecowitt WS3900 console
Ecowitt GW1000/GW1100
Ecowitt WS68: Anemometer, UV/solar
Ecowitt WH40: Rain gauge
Ecowitt WH57 Lightning sensor
Ecowitt WH32E: Outside T & H sensor
Stratus Rain Gauge (manual)
Raspberry Pi 3B+ (WeeWX/CumulusMX)
Raspberry Pi Zero 2W (WeeWX/MQTT/Belchertown)
---
Barometer wiki: http://meshka.eu/Ecowitt/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=barometer#barometer
---
http://weather.glenns.ca (pwsdashboard - live)
http://weewx.glenns.ca
http://glenns.ca/cumulusmx2/index.htm
---
Uploading to: AWN, ecowitt.net, Weather Underground, PWSweather.com, AWEKAS, Windy.com, WOW

 

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