Re: [Discuss] Linux project - WX
Thanks for sharing that write-up Rich! I've got a crappy (consumer) wireless weather station in my back yard. I'd like to someday upgrade it like the setup you did. So, I'm keeping a copy of your notes for future reference. I put it into my wiki at https://freephile.org/wiki/index.php/Linux_weather_station Feel free to reference that and/or let me know if you'd like a wiki account to add/edit. Greg Rundlett http://eQuality-Tech.com http://freephile.org On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 2:10 AM, Rich Braun ri...@pioneer.ci.net wrote: Not long after my last move, the wireless receiver on my antiquated Brookstone outdoor thermometers broke, reviving my decade-old interest in building a Linux-based weather observatory. This is a How-To for the project that I've built since 15-Jan, which you can view at http://wx.ci.net. The main thing that's changed since mid-2000s is that low-power embedded-Linux machines have gotten insanely cheap; alas, the climate-measuring gear hasn't changed at all. Oh, and Weather Underground got bought out by TWC just a couple years ago, alas. Here goes: I'll share the assumptions, parts list, and software setup. Assumptions --- - You're doing this as a home hobbyist, not a professional. - You have permission/ability to securely mount an anemometer at a high point near your home, workplace, school or friend's place. - You want to bear witness to climate changes over time, in a precise way. - In addition to temperature, you want to measure wind, rainfall, and barometric pressure - You want your data fully accessible online or on your mobile device, and to share it via a website (your own or Weather Underground). - Once set up, you don't want to have to babysit the hardware. - You already have a web server somewhere (local or far-away, Apache or nginx: doesn't matter). - Optionally, you have a local instance of MySQL available somewhere. Parts List -- - Raspberry Pi with SD Card (type 10, 8GB or bigger) - $30 - Davis Instruments station - choose from Vantage Pro 2 wireless with fan-aspirated shield - $695 Vantage Pro 2 wired - $415 Vantage Vue wireless - $310 (Sensors for sunlight UV/visible are bundled at the $850 level) - 3 batteries (C size) for Davis console - $8 - Davis Instruments logger (required) with WeatherLink - $130 - Dahua 3MP outdoor webcam model IPC-HFW4300S - $125 - PoE injector for webcam - $20 to $40 - 10' steel mounting pole (1-1/4 galvanized natural-gas pipe) with end cap U-clamps from Home Depot - $25 Approximate budget: $500 low-end without cam, $1050 high-end with cam I am not aware of any worthy rival to Davis Instruments; you can get something that *might* work for less than the low end of my suggested budget, but very likely will make the whole project a huge, unreliable chore. The Davis products are woefully obsolete as UI devices, but I swallowed my criticism and am focused on getting the data online. Dahua does have decent rivals, but at this price-point there really isn't anything worth considering. Hardware Setup -- - Find the highest point available, put the end cap on your mounting pole - Fasten anemometer to top of pole using Davis-included hardware, and the rest of the instrument array about 3' below the top - Securely attach pole to a wall or railing at the highest structurally-sound part of your property. Make sure it doesn't *budge* even in high winds. If you got a non-wireless version, route the cable to where you place the console. - Open back of the Davis console, install batteries and the overpriced logger thingie. Find your coffee table, take out the Windows software that came with the logger and put a mug of beer on it. Sip beer slowly at next step. - Plug a USB cable from your Rasberry Pi into the logger, and an Ethernet cable into your LAN (or wifi if you prefer that) - Figure out your latitude/longitude/elevation, enter them into the station console - (Optional) find a good spot for your webcam, run cat5e cable to its location from your Ethernet switch and test with PoE power injector; verify browser access with password admin/admin Software Setup - WX --- - Get Raspbian onto your SD card; plug a blank card into your Linux or Mac and use the 'dd' command to copy the Debian Wheezy 2015-01-31 image from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ to the card. Tip for Mac users: use the rdisk device, e.g. /dev/rdisk1, otherwise the copy will take hours. - Plug an HDMI monitor and keyboard (temporarily) into the Raspberry Pi and boot it up; go through its dialog, selecting en_US.UTF-8 locale, then log in as 'pi'. - Use fdisk/resize2fs (or the Raspbian installer dialog) to increase size of the root volume (I prefer manual configuration so I can leave some scratch space available to use in a pinch). - Invoke: apt-get install xtide xtide-data python-configobj \
Re: [Discuss] Linux project - WX
On 02/10/2015 02:10 AM, Rich Braun wrote: aviation software. But it actually comes from the days of telegraph machines: in Morse code it is .-- -..- -. .. -.-. . --- .-- - --- , thank you! As you mention, weather stations hardware is still a bit on the expensive side, so for now I make do with temperature+humidity DHT22 and the barometric pressure sensor BMP180. cheers, Nuno -- http://aeminium.org/nuno/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Linux project - WX
On 2/10/2015 12:19 PM, Nuno Sucena Almeida wrote: As you mention, weather stations hardware is still a bit on the expensive side, so for now I make do with temperature+humidity DHT22 and the barometric pressure sensor BMP180. Kids these days with their sensors and their servers. When I did weather recording I used an alcohol thermometer, a hair-tension hygrometer, and a Goethe barometer, and I recorded measurements in a spiral-bound notebook with a pencil. :) As a point: weather != climate. You won't observe any kind of climate change with your back yard weather station. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] Linux project - WX
On 2/10/2015 12:19 PM, Nuno Sucena Almeida wrote: As you mention, weather stations hardware is still a bit on the expensive side, so for now I make do with temperature+humidity DHT22 and the barometric pressure sensor BMP180. Kids these days with their sensors and their servers. When I did weather recording I used an alcohol thermometer, a hair-tension hygrometer, and a Goethe barometer, and I recorded measurements in a spiral-bound notebook with a pencil. :) As a point: weather != climate. You won't observe any kind of climate change with your back yard weather station. Not to be pedantic, sure he will, it will just take years to see the trends. -- Rich P. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
[Discuss] Linux project - WX
Not long after my last move, the wireless receiver on my antiquated Brookstone outdoor thermometers broke, reviving my decade-old interest in building a Linux-based weather observatory. This is a How-To for the project that I've built since 15-Jan, which you can view at http://wx.ci.net. The main thing that's changed since mid-2000s is that low-power embedded-Linux machines have gotten insanely cheap; alas, the climate-measuring gear hasn't changed at all. Oh, and Weather Underground got bought out by TWC just a couple years ago, alas. Here goes: I'll share the assumptions, parts list, and software setup. Assumptions --- - You're doing this as a home hobbyist, not a professional. - You have permission/ability to securely mount an anemometer at a high point near your home, workplace, school or friend's place. - You want to bear witness to climate changes over time, in a precise way. - In addition to temperature, you want to measure wind, rainfall, and barometric pressure - You want your data fully accessible online or on your mobile device, and to share it via a website (your own or Weather Underground). - Once set up, you don't want to have to babysit the hardware. - You already have a web server somewhere (local or far-away, Apache or nginx: doesn't matter). - Optionally, you have a local instance of MySQL available somewhere. Parts List -- - Raspberry Pi with SD Card (type 10, 8GB or bigger) - $30 - Davis Instruments station - choose from Vantage Pro 2 wireless with fan-aspirated shield - $695 Vantage Pro 2 wired - $415 Vantage Vue wireless - $310 (Sensors for sunlight UV/visible are bundled at the $850 level) - 3 batteries (C size) for Davis console - $8 - Davis Instruments logger (required) with WeatherLink - $130 - Dahua 3MP outdoor webcam model IPC-HFW4300S - $125 - PoE injector for webcam - $20 to $40 - 10' steel mounting pole (1-1/4 galvanized natural-gas pipe) with end cap U-clamps from Home Depot - $25 Approximate budget: $500 low-end without cam, $1050 high-end with cam I am not aware of any worthy rival to Davis Instruments; you can get something that *might* work for less than the low end of my suggested budget, but very likely will make the whole project a huge, unreliable chore. The Davis products are woefully obsolete as UI devices, but I swallowed my criticism and am focused on getting the data online. Dahua does have decent rivals, but at this price-point there really isn't anything worth considering. Hardware Setup -- - Find the highest point available, put the end cap on your mounting pole - Fasten anemometer to top of pole using Davis-included hardware, and the rest of the instrument array about 3' below the top - Securely attach pole to a wall or railing at the highest structurally-sound part of your property. Make sure it doesn't *budge* even in high winds. If you got a non-wireless version, route the cable to where you place the console. - Open back of the Davis console, install batteries and the overpriced logger thingie. Find your coffee table, take out the Windows software that came with the logger and put a mug of beer on it. Sip beer slowly at next step. - Plug a USB cable from your Rasberry Pi into the logger, and an Ethernet cable into your LAN (or wifi if you prefer that) - Figure out your latitude/longitude/elevation, enter them into the station console - (Optional) find a good spot for your webcam, run cat5e cable to its location from your Ethernet switch and test with PoE power injector; verify browser access with password admin/admin Software Setup - WX --- - Get Raspbian onto your SD card; plug a blank card into your Linux or Mac and use the 'dd' command to copy the Debian Wheezy 2015-01-31 image from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ to the card. Tip for Mac users: use the rdisk device, e.g. /dev/rdisk1, otherwise the copy will take hours. - Plug an HDMI monitor and keyboard (temporarily) into the Raspberry Pi and boot it up; go through its dialog, selecting en_US.UTF-8 locale, then log in as 'pi'. - Use fdisk/resize2fs (or the Raspbian installer dialog) to increase size of the root volume (I prefer manual configuration so I can leave some scratch space available to use in a pinch). - Invoke: apt-get install xtide xtide-data python-configobj \ sysstat python-mysqldb python-serial python-usb \ python-cheetah python-imaging rsync - Invoke apt-get update, then download weewx_3.0.1-1.deb package from http://sourceforge.net/projects/weewx/files, install with 'dpkg -i' command - Verify connectivity with the weather station, and set parameters thus: wee_config_device --set-interval 300 wee_config_device --set-rain-year-start=7 # or whatever month - Set up a vhost on your webserver. My apache2 vhost looks like this: VirtualHost *:80 # Server Configuration: ServerName wx.ci.net DocumentRoot /var/www/htdocs/wx/ ServerAdmin
