Arduino Based Ascom Observing Conditions and Safety Monitor

Great news :grin:

Do you think the sensor inside the box get the right data or the box influence the reading? I think that the pressure is the same outside the box, the temperature is very close, but the humidity could change in very significative way.

I am reading temp from 3 different sensors (temp, baro and MLX, with the MLX exposed to outside) and they all are fairly close to each other (MLX is usually 1f lower), so temp not seem to be affected much.

I am not sure about humidity though. Since moisture will most probably get trapped inside. I am sure dew point is a little off because of this.

I need to think of a better design where these basic sensors are outside the box with the electronics inside. WIP…

Finally got the prototype of the weather station up and running to the wife’s delight, and yes, it just so happened to land next to the observatory. Here’s a screen shot and picture of the installation site. IMG_0753[1] | j g | Flickr, Untitled2 | j g | Flickr

This is an ethernet based station with 250 ft of cat 5 cable. Raining at present and the Hydreon is working great. I’m using a bme 280 sensor for the atmospherics and a Young 5103v wind monitor. I love this little airplane and it landed in just the right place :relaxed: Now to add some more refinements…

Thanks to Manoj and Gabe for the inspiration in this project…Gunny

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Congrats Gunny!

I am working on V2 of this project which will have the following additional:

  • Completely sealed with only one cable gland for the rain bucket and anemometer
  • Battery powered with solar panel for 24/7 operation (based on 18650 lithium ion which are cheap and easy to find)
  • Cloud connected so data can be dumped into Google cloud for historical purposes (and I also want to experiment a bit with machine learning to see if predictions can be pulled based on training with past data and incoming data. For eg.: Can I get a notification from the weather station that tonight will be a really good night for imaging)
  • Build in sqm meter and lux meter, using CCTV lenses and LUX and light to frequency sensors.
  • MLX sealed inside the box with a fresnel lens.

Only thing that will be off with this is humidity measurement because of the seal. Ambient temp seems to be ok. Thinking about rigging up a humidity sensor outside the box. Have to experiment.

I’ll look forward to it Manoj,

I’ll be moving the weather station to a 70 ft tower which is about 200ft. from the house. It will be mounted at about 25 ft above ground. Using a bme 280 sensor for temp, humidity, and bp, I plan to place the sensor into a 3/4" piece of 90 degree pvc conduit pointed downward and mounted on the box. The opening will have a piece of window screen to keep bugs and debris out, while at the same time allowing the sensor to have access to the three atmospheric parameters. It seems to be working fine and is lot better/ more accurate than sealing it in the box…Gunny