Author Topic: New DIY station setup - Davis sensors with ESP32 and Home Assistant + ceilometer  (Read 4903 times)

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Offline Gareth79

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I thought people here might appreciate some details of a fairly DIY weather station setup I've been working on the past couple of months.

I've had some Davis VP sensors in the loft for a few years and have been meaning to set up something custom, and finally got around to it after using the ESPHome software and realising that it would be perfect to integrate them into Home Assistant (which I use extensively for home automation etc).

I will upload the ESPHome configuration to Github at some point, because it might be useful to others, I had to write a few custom sensors to get it working correctly.  Basically the direction vane is connected to an analogue pin and translated into degrees, the rain bucket and anememoter are connected to pulse counters which are translated into mm/mph.  I also am using some cheap DS18B20 temperature sensors, and a relay to switch the rain gauge heater.  I bought a BME280 sensor to get humidity too but it didn't seem to work on the ESP32 for some reason (it worked on a Wemos D1 for testing though, odd).

The wind sensors are on a 34mm (3mm wall thickness) steel pole bolted to the house wall, currently 3.5m above the brackets, but I will raise it up a bit more I think to clear it as far as possible from the roof. I managed to get it up just before a storm here and I measured 61mph so I think it's all strong enough!   The rain gauge etc. is at the end of a patio roof, approx 3m from the house. I think it's overall in the most sensible place for the moment.

Finally, I picked up an Eliasson CBME80 ceilometer off eBay just before xmas (sold as unknown condition but works perfectly!), and it has been a project to integrate the raw data from that into something useful.


Online mcrossley

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Wow, great first post! All sorts of interesting stuff here.
Mark

Offline TraderGary

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Welcome to the Forum!

Great to see ingenuity above and beyond!
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Offline davidmc36

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Simply awesome. I love the DIY angle.

I have ESP Pico and BME inside grow tent working well. Works fine on full size also.

I use this setup:

https://lastminuteengineers.com/bme280-esp32-weather-station/

Offline Gareth79

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Simply awesome. I love the DIY angle.

I have ESP Pico and BME inside grow tent working well. Works fine on full size also.

I use this setup:

https://lastminuteengineers.com/bme280-esp32-weather-station/

Thanks, it made me wonder if the style I bought is just a bit flakey, so I ordered one in that PCB style to see if it's better!

Today's work has been processing the raw signal data from the ceilometer to see if I can plot pretty graphs, and it works!


Offline davidmc36

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Like all those gadgets seems a few flakey or bogus things creep about. I try to stick with better retailers if not too costly. Or find super cheap and get three lol.

Offline Garth Bock

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Wow ! Great project ! What is the 2nd picture ?

Offline Gareth79

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Wow ! Great project ! What is the 2nd picture ?

Thanks!  Do you mean the photo with the PCB/wiring?  That is basically the control board where the various sensors connect to, the small PCB is an ESP32 microcontroller which runs the ESPHome software to process the data and pass it on.


Offline Garth Bock

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Thanks but more specifically the round rings and what appears to be lenses ?

Offline cpufrost

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That's a LIDAR, essentially a long range measuring device to determine cloud base height.

Neat stuff.

Offline Gareth79

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Thanks but more specifically the round rings and what appears to be lenses ?

Oh you mean that picture, yes as mentioned it's a cloud ceilometer, it uses a laser to measure cloud heights (and depths).   You can see the outputs in the screenshot, also I posted a chart a few posts above showing the raw data.  I haven't had enough interesting clouds yet to figure out just how detailed an image it can produce.

Offline Sleuth255

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I need one of those... 

edit:

Yikes! not cheap...
« Last Edit: January 02, 2021, 03:29:56 PM by Sleuth255 »

Offline Gareth79

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I need one of those... 

edit:

Yikes! not cheap...

Yeah... I paid £200 for mine off eBay, it was just a fluke that one was listed when I randomly looked too. It was listed as untested/condition unknown (the power connections are mil-spec bayonet things) so it was a gamble. 

Offline DaleReid

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Gareth:
Where are you located?
You said you've not had enough 'interesting' clouds to test your ceilometer.  I can send you LOTS of clouds from here in the Midwest USA.

I assume you're in England from the price you paid for your ceilometer.
Dale
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Offline Juande

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Hi!

Did you ever published this on GitHub? If yes, what is the repository?

Thanks!

Offline TheBushPilot

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Dude this is awesome.

Bravo =D>
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