Sweet project! Looking forward to hearing more about it. One of my fondest memories is making landfall at Opua, just down the road, on a passage from Tonga. It was dawn, and those hills were lit a fiery orange-red. Beautiful scene after 6 days at sea!
-tk On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 5:31 PM Alex Edwards <alexander.edwa...@gmail.com> wrote: > Happy 2020 everyone. Just another weather / webcam project, but hopefully > a bit different > > Its a solar powered Raspberry Pi Zero WH, together with FineOffset WS2080 > weather station, Pi Camera 1.3, 3G MiFi, EPever LS1024B solar controller, > 26Ah battery (2nd hand) and 40W solar panel. Components placed in a > UV-resistant plastic box to survive nasty NZ sun. Its all on a slighyl > remote hill paddock overlooking the Bay of Islands in New Zealand. > > You can see the output here: > https://horsetrekn.co.nz/paihia-weather-cam-bay-of-islands > <https://horsetrekn.co.nz/paihia-weather-cam-bay-of-islands?fbclid=IwAR09ezC04UHcHfqlSi_OOJkqnfi2BQV2yllYH9zQHTNV2ZykoalOfmIGy-A> > - WeeWX links at the bottom of the page. > > The idea is to take photos of the weather, but also of the nice view and > any horses roaming around the hill paddock. The Pi currently uploads a > new photo every 5 minutes to our webserver, and some basic JSON weather > data as a very minimal WeeWX report. > > Once a day it uploads weather and solar power charts, generated using 2 > WeeWX daemons. After weeks creating some EPever / EPsolar drivers, I > spotted Mattew Wall had done something similar exactly the same time. I've > modified that driver for my needs and created a straight forward skin. I'll > upload my stuff to Github when its tidied a bit more. I also spent way > too long creating other MODBUS 'map' style drivers I may upload too, or > modify the driver to use - they were working well :) > > The idea of the 40W panel and quite large battery is the Pi should be able > to keep running for around 5 days during winter/stormy weather, and > overnight too for weather data. The setup could survive for 24hrs or so > using a 7Ah battery and smaller panel. I've got the Pi's box stacked on > another to get a better view, and using a 2nd hand barrel as a platform > which I'll part fill with water for stability. > > I wonder about creating a more generic 'solar' project for WeeWX that > could handle different solar controller 'drivers'? I also wonder about > including a dummy 'solar driver' as an example in WeeWX? > > Next steps - > * Raise camera a bit using a 2m camera cable on a pole. > * Consider uploading WeeWX data more frequenty, possibly to another WeeWX > process on the webserver which can then create the charts etc. > * Provide an album and timelapse video of recent images. I already do this > on the Pi, but not on the website. > > Some tips learned along the way :- > > * Mozjpeg does a great job at compressing JPEGs more, especially with > ms-ssim tuning, key to saving mobile data etc. Other compression techniques > took too long for debatable improvement. > * The Pi seemed unreliable reading USB serial data, until I read about > using a powered hub. Even though the USB load is quite low, this seems to > help stability a lot. The hub is powered from a dual 12V-5V USB loom from > the controller, the other USB powering the Pi. > * The Pi Camera 1.3 seems A LOT nicer to use than the v2 - at least the > versions I got. Less resolution, but much nicer colours, better exposure > and sharper too. > * sshReach.me is a handy way to login to the Pi over 3G. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "weewx-user" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to weewx-user+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/bf1c55d4-f6eb-4ad0-a941-5a373b5c592a%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/bf1c55d4-f6eb-4ad0-a941-5a373b5c592a%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "weewx-user" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to weewx-user+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/CAPq0zEDRk6%3DNBQecVcBJJXpL%2Bvjt%3Dwe3qTUyn%2BNYC2JkjzNn%2BA%40mail.gmail.com.
