April 4, 2018
Description
Weather Stations are a very useful devices, and as we increase our knowledge of the global weather, quantifying our own local experience is also popular. Weather has never been more interesting! Integrating aspects of the weather to IoT is also increasingly important.
Important Update: I have designed a 433MHz link to allow the transmitter and sensors to be separate from the console and sensors. Output can be to a stand alone LCD display or by serial, eg to a Raspberry Pi, for further processing. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3546977
This project does not invent anything much new, but should give a working set of plans for a weather enthusiast to build their own station. The design is somewhat double-brick out-house in most places and does not require really hi-res printing eg no wafer thin walls. However it will produce a robust system that people may like to refine themselves. The OpenSCAD files are provided to allow people to customise the designs.
The system was designed and built for an Arts/Science Exhibition, FLOAT, as a demonstration station, and has been wired up and programmed to demonstrate the usual weather station functions. A cutaway funnel is also provided, which was used with the Rain Gauge for this exhibition. In the demonstration video a film of plastic has been glued to the open side so that water can be dripped in to demonstrate the toggling tipping bucket system. I have also added an upside down version of the funnel for the Rain Gauge as requested by readers. This will print without supports and be a lot more economical with time and plastic. (Thanks Kevin).
The system also has a working Arduino program included to illustrate how the the weather station can be interfaced, processed and results displayed. The Arduino program, as it stands, does not provide any definitive calibration for rain and wind speed (if it is accurate, that has happened only by chance :-). Wind direction, Temperature and Barometric pressure are accurate. If you build it, and use my Arduino program, you will have to spend some time calibrating wind speed, and fine tuning rainfall. The program uses very little of the overall Arduino Uno capabilities, so there is much room for expansion and innovation in extra sensors or data processing eg adding a wireless interface (see above).
The non-printable extras I used are listed below, and also in the OpenSCAD and Arduino scripts. Plus you will probably want to add to the Arduino gear.... I added a Barometric/Temperature sensor, but BeeBix has added Humidity & Temperature Sensor(s) and an RTC (Realtime Clock). This is a really neat extension, see here for details on how BeeBix did it - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3379691. Plus he has revamped the display to allow more information to be displayed clearly as well. Awesome!
Some suggestions for mounting the sensors are provided, along with glue on brackets and fittings to construct a simple "T" frame combined with aluminium tubing, however this can be adapted as circumstances dictate.
You will find a short video at Youtube Link: https://youtu.be/bPasvq7NFdE
If you like the design, you are welcome to make a Tip. Cheers!
License:
Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial
RobWLakes
