DIY Standalone Weather Station Powered by Arduino

Intro: DIY Standalone Weather Station Powered by Arduino

Hello Makers out there

Again this is not a Step by step Instructable . Like always i forgot to take take snaps since the inception of this project.

The idea of Building a community weather station using Open hardware Kicked a long back. We people from a local DIY community build this weather station. In our country we don't give importance to weather data apart from the days where we have heavy rain or cyclone. It's always good to have weather data which could be accessed by local community.

We build this project with a desire to have more numbers of similar stations in and around our place. so that we will have huge amount of community owned data. We want to reduce the cost as much as possible and don't want to include complex stuff in the project. We chose Arduino as our platform since we can make hardware that is cost effective as well as not much complex.

STEP 1: Things You Need.

Electronics Stuff

1. Arduino Mega 2560 or Arduino Uno
2. Arduino Ethernet Shield W5100
3. DHT11 Temperature sensor
4. BMP180 Pressure Sensor
5. IR module
6. HMC588L Magnetic Sensor
7. Ribbon Cable
8. 9V DC adaptor( Any thing that can power your Arduino )

Other Hardware Stuff.

1. Wooden plank and Plywood for Stevenson screen
2. Iron Tripod( for deploying the station)
3. PVC pipe and stuff
4. Cups for Anemometer
5. Ball bearings and slip rings
6. Old SMPS enclosure
7. long Ethernet cable. Very long :P

Miscellaneous Stuff

• Have all the tools possible that you may use in your electonics project

STEP 2: Hardware Part

Stevenson Screen

We built the Stevenson screen. We used plywoods and wooden Planck. The dimension of our Steven Screen is and like most we painted it White.

Anemometer and Wind-vane Mount

Our prototype used the following

1. 1.5 M 2" PVC pipe
2. 2" T joint
3. 2" to 0.5" Reducer
4. 0.5" PVC pipe
5. 0.5" L bend Joint
6. 0.5" L bend small

For Mounting the PVC pipe we used a Old Tripod that we salvaged from an old Telescope. It was made of steel and i can apparently hold the station.

Metal Enclosure for Arduino

In order to place the Arduino with its W5100 Shield we used a SMPS enclosure. It has plenty of space inside it. We just added a Fan to make it look even cooler.

STEP 3: Anemometer and Wind Vane

Anemometer

The anemometer was build using Plastic cups they are attached to a plastic pipe which inturn connected to a slip ring and a plastic ring. It is painted black and white to detect the rotation. An IR sensor is connected in place to detect each rotation. A simple Rotatory Encoder.

Wind vane

The designed vane is attached to a small plastic pipe which is also attached to a slip ring. the magnetometer sensor is attached at the tail and wires are inserted into the plastic pipe.

Both the module are placed into the L bend and wired through the PVC pipe to reach the Arduino Mega.

STEP 4: Electronics

Stevenson Screen

DHT11 and BMP 180 are connected to Arduino. The pins are 3 for DHT and 20,21 for BMP180. They are placed inside the Stevenson Screen and wired outside the box using ribbon cable. The connections are shown on the sketch.

Anemometer and Windvane.

IR module is used to detect the Rotation. HMC588L sensor is attached to the tail of the vane. the pins are 8 for anemometer and 20,21 for HMC respectively. They are also wired using Ribbon cable.

STEP 5: Aesthetics

We painted the Tripod and Mount white to make it look cool. The enclosure was painted brown.

We used a 5V USB adaptor for powering the Arduino.

Dlink UTP cat 6 was used as Ethernet Cable.

I don't think i left anything else. The code is little messy. I will update the code with human readable form soon. Thanks for bearing with my instructable.

Code : [GITHUB]

Comments

[GuilhermeS91]

Hi,

Im trying this project right now in a arduino uno, but im having some problens...

Like, i cant understand the conections, do they have an schecth? And do i need do change the code to work?

If u got time to answer, i would apreciate it !

[crakensio]

I will try to find the sketches, i hope i might have.

[irinak1]

Hi,

I’m irinakim and I’m work in the Wiznet.

Thank you for using our product.

We are collecting so much data using ourproduct.

And I will post the this project on our Web site.( http://wiznetmuseum.com)

Can I post your product on our Web site?

[clothier_bruce]

I once built an anemometer. IIRC, I had an opto-slot and a segmented disc. No matter. There are many different hardware designs, but all have the same problem: how do you calibrate it?

[John T MacF Mood]

Aesthetics aside, if you paint the enclosure brown, you may skew your temperature readings. You do have a temperature sensor listed, but if it's inside that enclosure, your temps will be higher than actual.

See the US National Weather service site for siting information on temperature sensors. ( http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/coop/standard.htm )

[BarryK14]

A small pc fan and a couple of solar panels from garden lights where the batteries are us can be used to aspirate the temperature sensor. The fan only runs during daylight which is when it is needed. Suck air over the sensor rather than blow it on to it.

[John T MacF Mood]

Push or pull the ambient air drawn across the sensor will be affected by the color of the paint.

The sensor being inside the anemometer makes more sense than fans and odd color enclosures. Thank you author crakensio .

[crakensio]

Temperature sensor is placed inside the anemometer. We did follow the standard design parameter for building it.

The metal enclosure contains only Arduino Mega. We will be moving it soon. Will add changes in the next build. Thanks

[jn126]

nice project,

minor fly in the ointment

Your windvane arrow presents big surface, so it points in direction of where the wind is going.

This is opposite of all windvanes in the world . Even the wind socks at airports point into the wind.

[BarryK14]

The wind vane will point into the wind the direction it is coming from because of its large surface area if you turn the arrow round.

Windsocks can only ever point in the direction the wind is going to and not from. It is like a flag in that it is floppy, the shape it takes gives an approximation of wind speed

[crakensio]

Yup, as pointed by @betwys1. Something went wrong while building, it seems.
I will stick with the standard design

Thanks mate

[crakensio]

Yup, as pointed by @betwys1. Something went wrong while building, it seems.
I will stick with the standard design

Thanks mate

[madpenguin8]

Cool build, I like it. One suggestion is to earth ground it for safety. Currently you have a lightning rod with the shortest ground path potentially through the CAT 5 into anything else physically connected at your hub or switch. You might also think about using a wifi module to completely isolate it.

[k.menon]

Actually you can use a optoisolator, rather than a wifi module (to keep it cheap)

[BarryK14]

unless it is a pretty close strike in which case induced voltage of several thousand volts can easily jump that. Believe me, I've seen 2 inch sparks from a cable to ground with a local indirect strike. If you are going down the opto isolator route it should be at the router end not the weather station end! A couple of esp8266 modules or 433MHz modules will give wireless isolation for less than £12.

[crakensio]

A big thanks mate. I too was worried about it. I even thought of building a lightning conductor :P

Wifi Module , I will for sure.

[deswiger]

This I must try. Thanks for the help. SemperFi

[ralema69]

Suggestion: Try and break down your instructions to a little more detail in regards to the piping and connectors used, size/dimensions, etc. It is very vague on the build design.

[John T MacF Mood]

Overall a very nice concept and it should be able to report to a lot of folks needing weather info in your area.

[crakensio]

Yup. It will be a great push to have a similiar station around my home. Thanks @John T MacF Mood