Weather Station Project #21 - Updated the RPi Hardware

Interesting; as it turns out it's very easy to go from the old B model to the RPi 2 without difficulty. I wanted to update my software and the version of the raspberry pi. I did an update, followed by an upgrade, followed by a dist–upgrade and was then able to take that SD card and grab an image of it. I then placed the image onto a micro-SD card which would fit on the RPi 2. It booted right up and has been outputting weather data ever since.

Weather Station Project #20 - Found a Neat Resource for the Weather Display

About 2 months ago, a post was made to GitHub at https://github.com/kmkingsbury/raspberrypi-weather-station from Kevin Kingsbury.  This is a RPi based weather station, but has a twist in that there is an avid use of the Weather Underground API for his display.  I plan on tapping into that code for use with my RPi based Weather Display.  As you know, I plan on extracting all of my information for the Display from outside sources, particularly Weather Underground.  By using some of this code my life will be made simple.

BTW, Kevin has done a fine job with the backgrounds and displays for Austin, TX.  The last time I was in Austin was for a conference in 1996 where I gave a paper on Requirements creep and Software Design Patterns.  Memories.

Weather Station Project #19 - Thinking of Switching to a USB over IP Solution for the Console

I have been having some issues with weewx over the last couple of days.  It has been almost a year (July 2014) since I installed the Vantage Vue Weather Station and weewx on a Raspberry Pi.  Everything has been going real well except for the last couple of days.  It is looking like maybe the SD card is starting to give way because the RPi has been crashing? or weewx has been crashing?  I don't know at this stage.  I need to meter the RPi to get a crash dump if weewx stops working.  I have the RPi setup to start weewx when it reboots, therefore it is more likely that weewx has stopped and the RPi remains running.  I would only know that if the crash dump says so.

In the process of thinking about setting up something here, it occurred to me to split out the USB interface on the console to a different RPi.  If I run a virtualhere USB server on an RPi, for $39, I can access the console USB from multiple clients on my network.  In particular, I can access the USB information from my MacMini, and from additional RPis in the house.  So slipping an additional RPi into the mix gives:

This does not limit my ability to use RPi2 for other USB tasks either.  Since it would be physically located in the living room (and I might be able to run both the client and the server on the same RPi) it would be convenient to have other USB devices connected as well.

Update: This might not be as smooth as I would like.  I currently have the RPi5 separated in its own VLAN in order to throttle the output (so Verizon will be happy).  Gotta think that one over.

Weather Station Project #18 - Obtained a Weather Underground API Key

I have been in the process of coming up with a way of (1) calibrating the upcoming Solar Radiation and UV sensors for my Weather Station; and (2) determining how I can display the Weather Underground information for my Weather Station on a convenient interactive home display.  So the first thing that needed to be done was to obtain an API key to Weather Underground.  They have made this extremely easy to do, especially for a developer.

I will first use the key to build a data extraction tool to gather solar radiation and UV readings from stations near me so that I can come up with an equation for my sensors that will put me in the ballpark of the more costly ones.  This will allow me to modify the weewx routines on my RPi to accept the new sensor information and then send it on to Weather Underground.

I will then use the key to put together a touchscreen style display controlled via a RPi that will display the current and forecast weather for my Weather Station.  I intend to do this as discussed in weather-station-project-9-building a weather and general info display.  The key is necessary to pull the Weather Underground information.  Of course, it could be used to display the information from any Weather Underground station, but let me build it first.

The general sequencing will be as follows for the RPi Weather Display:

Weather Station Project #17 - Waiting for some parts to Start on the Solar Radiation/UV Sensor

I just purchased a TP-Link TL-POE150S PoE Injector and a TL-POE10R PoE Splitter over the weekend.  What intrigued me was that the TL-POE150S came with a 48 volt power supply to inject power through the Ethernet cable. The TL-POE10R had a selection switch to convert down to 12, 9, or 5 volts prior to splitting the output via a 5.5mm x 2.1mm connector (cable included).  I also picked up a clear sandwich box to put the equipment into.

I ordered a power splitter, power adapter plugs, and power to micro USB adapters from Amazon.

The parts list looks like this so far:

1. Raspberry Pi B+
2. Gertduino
3. Arduino Proto Board
4. Raspberry Pi No-IR camera
5. TP-Link TL-POE150S PoE Injector w/power supply
6. TP-Link TL-POE10R PoE Splitter w/power connector cable
7. Power splitter cable (1 female to 4 males - 5.5mm x 2.1mm)
8. Power adapter plug (1 female 5.5mm x 2.1mm to ISO block)
9. Power plug 5.5mm x 2.1mm to micro USB cable
10. Ethernet socket adapter (for mounting on wall of sandwich box)
11. Clear sandwich box (see-through for RPi camera)
12. RTV to pot up the holes so that water can't get in
13. Mounting platform and hardware to mount sandwich box on outside

For the moment, I am going to forgo the Pollen Sensor and concentrate on the other two sensors.  I will update this list and add a picture as the stuff comes together this weekend.

Update: I have the power splitter cables in, still waiting on the power plug to micro USB cable to come in.  They were supposed to be delivered on Monday and it is Thursday already.  I can't complain because the adapters were only about a buck apiece.  Somehow they are tied up in Indianapolis, IN under a "Processing Exception", whatever that means.  I may end up ordering the cables from a different source.  Ok, put in another order in case this one doesn't come through.  These cables are apparently tough to find.

I added the picture below to show the new setup with the two sensors on top, on an Arduino breadboard, Gertduino, on top of a Raspberry Pi B+.  There is also a No-IR RPi camera peeking out from between the Gertduino and the RPi.


I am also wondering if I should make the unit multi-tasking.  If so, I could setup my own web service API so that the unit would respond with values from the sensors, pictures from the camera, and potentially other information gleaned from Weather Underground for my weather station.  That way I could minimize the kiosk nature of my RPi Weather Display and use unit as the main source for the display.  That also simplifies the interface with my weewx software connected to the Davis Console.

Weather Station Project #16 - Equations for the Solar Radiation Sensor

I happened upon some Solar radiation unit conversion equations from the USDA at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/national/home/?cid=stelprdb1043619. I am very grateful that someone decided that it was in the best interests of the country to provide this information.  Anyway, now I have some basis to get values from the TSL2561 luminosity sensor.  Other conversion factors are at http://www.egc.com/useful_info_lighting.php.  According to the lbl.gov site at http://bccp.lbl.gov/Academy/workshop08/08%20PDFs/Inv_Square_Law.pdf, when converting Lux to Watts/m^2:

Converting Lux to W/m2
• There is no simple conversion….it depends on
the wavelength or color of the light.
• However, for the SUN, there is an approximate
conversion of 0.0079 W/m2 per Lux.
• Example: We read 75,000 Lux on our light
sensor. We can convert that reading to W/m2.
75,000 x 0.0079 = 590 W/m2

But now I have a check on the USDA information.  The primary value which is output from the TSL2561 is in Lux.  The Merriam-Webster definition of Lux is "a unit of illumination equal to the direct illumination on a surface that is everywhere one meter from a uniform point source of one candle intensity or equal to one lumen per square meter."

So from the above equations I take the output of the TSL2561 sensor in Lux and convert to W/m2 by multiplying by 0.0079.

Weather Station Project #15 - Calibration Procedures for the DIY Solar Radiation Sensor

First of all, I am an engineer, not a statistician. I am trying to come up with a way of calibrating a DIY solar radiation sensor on the cheap. The original question that I asked can be referenced at the My Weather Station subreddit.

First some background: I am building a solar radiation sensor (measures watts/meter²⁾ from a TSL2561 luminosity sensor. The sensor will be placed under a pane of glass, coated with white translucent paint for light dispersion. The output of the sensor will be a number, representative of lux received at my house. I have 5 personal weather stations within a 15 mile radius who have expensive solar radiation sensors from which I can obtain data readings via Weather Underground. Given that cloud cover will alter the readings in each case, I am assuming that a statistical analysis is warranted. The data is also at the same time somewhat spatially distributed. I need to get the value from my DIY sensor into the ballpark of the other sensors.

My approach so far:

1. Gather the data from the 5 sites each day for an extended period of time. 
2. Use a Chi-square test to check if the data samples are likely from within the same distribution set (note that solar radiation results tend to follow an almost bell-shaped curve over the course of a day). 
3. Use a sample T-test to establish a mean and standard deviation representative of the set which varies throughout the day. 
4. Use the mean applied against the value determined by my DIY sensor to formulate an equation (assume a linear fit for right now). 
5. Check the altered output of my DIY sensor against values from the other 5 sites in a Chi-square test to determine if I am likely from the same distribution. 
6. Run some sort of correlation against the data set to further solidify the equation that I have found.

Question: is this approach viable? Are there any glaring issues with what I am trying to do? Is there anything else that might solidify the accuracy of the calibration?

To Be Continued ...

Weather Station Project #14 - Calibration Ideas for Solar Radiation Sensor

I have been mulling over the Solar Radiation Sensor and the UV Sensor and how those would be calibrated.  I have succeeded in getting the two main sensors connected to the Arduino.  The connections for the TSL2561 (for Radiation Sensor) is done according to instructions found at Adafruit - TSL2561 Luminosity Sensor. The connections for the SI1145 (for UV Sensor) is done according to the instructions found at Adafruit-si1145-breakout-board-uv-ir-visible-sensor.  I might be able to make do with the one SI1145 sensor, but the visible sensor is not calibrated.

Unfortunately, I will need to have each of these sensors under some sort of a window material.  The UV sensor will need to go under some type of window.  From the Cancer Research UK website, "UVA mostly causes skin ageing and research has now shown that it is also likely to cause skin cancer. UVB causes redness and sunburn and is a major risk factor for all types of skin cancer.  Most glass used for windows blocks UVB but not UVA. This means that although glass might reduce the risk of sunburn, it does not prevent long term damage from UVA."  In addition, I know that polycarbonate plastic will block most UV.  I am not sure of the window material that I should use for this.  It seems appropriate to use ordinary glass since that passes half of the UV radiation.  The luminosity sensor should be okay if placed under ordinary glass. I will of course need to hard mount the sensors on top of the Arduino - possibly substituting a Gertduino on top of a Raspberry Pi to transmit the information.

When I say calibrated, I mean outputting values that are statistically in-the-ballpark of sensors costing many times more.  What I will need to do is to correlate the output of these sensors over a period of time against local area sensors costing many times more.  The idea is that whatever values come out of the sensors can be modified to be statistically within the ballpark of the highly calibrated devices.  I would assume that I would need to form some equations so that the output of my sensors match that of others within the area.  The thing about my sensors is that they will follow the same curves as other sensors, taking out for cloud cover, etc.  and should be able to be mathematically stretched to match.  This will form the basis for my calibration and over a period of time should prove out to be accurate.

Weather Station Project #13 - Thinking of a Different Way to Send Snow Related Weather Data

I am sitting in the Detroit airport waiting for my flight and it occurred to me that I might be able to complement my weather station with some additional data. What I would do is get the additional data, such as snow accumulations and do a surface extrapolation to find approximately what it should be near me. Then, I could use some laser scanning techniques to extract a free fall snow drift. I would need to shelter the area where I would determine the size from wind (so that it doesn't drift from other places, giving a false reading). By using a laser scanning technique, I could measure the height of the snow pile and thus the amount of snowfall. Before I send the information out in my normal weather stream, I could use the extrapolated point to determine if my findings are within the "ballpark" of a correct amount. This would give me some confidence in my findings. Again, this could be transmitted via a wifi link to my network to be combined with other weather information.

I should think about how I am going to interject the other three sensors with this type of thing.

Maybe I should think about opening up a blog on the Weather Underground to talk about DIY and Hobbyist Built Weather Stations.

Weather Station Project #12 - Weather Station Still Holding Up

Maybe I'm paranoid but I do check on the weather station every once in a while. This involves looking at apps on my iPad to make sure that everything is working and the station is updating. It just seems that I have missed something because the data stream is running so well.

I still have to get around to making the sensors work and integrating it into the Weather Underground data stream. Now that it is winter and around Christmas time, the development will have to wait until I am able to have time. Right now I have a ton of things going on at work and I have family responsibilities.

I do wish everyone who comes across this little blog a fond Merry Christmas!

Weather Station Project #11 - Working on Code for Other Sensors

I had some time this weekend to work on the other sensors that I will be using in the weather station.  I decided to go ahead and test out the TSL2561, the SI1145, and the Sharp  Dust Sensor.  The Arduino breadboard that I am using for the other sensors in the test suite is the Parallax Board of Education.  This breadboard plugs right into the Arduino Uno (actually on top of an Ethernet shield and then into the Uno) and provides breakout of the analog and digital lines for prototyping as well as allowing other shields to be added to the mix.  I wanted to get the software working first followed by putting the sensors on a Arduino prototyping shield.  My thought was to use the Arduino to do the sensor interface and push a serial output down the USB line to a Raspberry Pi.  Alternatively, I have a couple of Wireless Transciever modules to do the same thing.  Haven't thought that far ahead yet.  The whole breadboarded setup is shown in the image below:




The visual sensors, the TSL2561 and the SI1145, are both cantilevered over the edge of the breadboard so that I can get to the pins below for the jumper wires.




The Dust Sensor in this photo is simply sitting on top of the Board of Education since there are no electrical conductive parts on the bottom.  I simply plugged the wires into their respective locations according to prototype setups that I found online.



The wiring setup for the Sharp Dust Sensor is according to what is recorded at standalone-sharp-dust-sensor.  The only difference is that I used A3 for the analog instead of A6 which is not available on the UNO.  The connections for the SI1145 is according to the instructions found at Adafruit-si1145-breakout-board-uv-ir-visible-sensor.  The connections for the TSL2561 is according to instructions found at Adafruit - TSL2561 Luminosity Sensor. Since the I2C addresses are different between the two visual sensors, I connected the SDA and SCL connections in parallel.  The two visual sensors make use of the Adafruit sensor library.

I tested each of the sensors independently from one another using test programs that were provided.  Now I am in the process of combining the test program pieces from each of the sensors into the same sketch.  After that, I will run a test to gather data over the period of a couple of days to try and compare to known values from other weather stations.  Once that is accomplished, I will endeavor to solder the sensors into the Arduino shield and place the whole lot into the specified fin enclosure.

-- LW

Weather Station Project #10 - Starting Extra Sensors

Ok, now that the Vantage Vue is putting out good data, the next portion of the project is to set up the next three sensors.  The three sensors will be Solar Radiation, UV Index, and Pollen Count.  I'm thinking the following:

(1) Processor Setup

• Use Arduino Mega to interface to the sensors (more IO lines, a little more capable system than the Uno)
• Use Prototyping board on top of Mega for interface to the sensors

(2) Solar Radiation

• Solar Radiation sensor based on use of TSL2561 Lux Sensor from Adafruit (TSL2561)
• Solar Radiation sensor will need to be put behind a white painted glass surface
• Solar Radiation sensor uses I2C bus, read by Mega

(3) UV Index

• UV Index sensor based on use of SI1145 UV Sensor from Adafruit (SI1145)
• UV Index sensor will need to be put behind a clear glass pane, plastic pane will inhibit the UV from passing to the sensor
• UV Index sensor uses I2C bus, read by Mega

(4) Pollen Count

• Pollen Count sensor based on use of SCM GP2Y1010AU0 bought from Happy Store (B00GET4KR0)
• Pollen Count sensor actually counts density of particles greater than 2.5 um
• Pollen Count sensor puts out a voltage which will need to be read by Mega

(5) Connection to Weather Station RPi

• Connection to Weather Station RPi  done through an Addicore nRF24L01 2.4GHz wireless transceiver (B00E594ZX0), one on the Mega and one on the Weather Station RPi
• Will require python script on Weather Station RPi to read values from Addicore transceiver
• Will require code on Mega to transmit all three values at a regular interval

(6) Housing for Sensors

• Housing for Sensors should be based off of Solar Radiation shield (Radiation-Shielding-7714)
• Power comes up through the bottom of the shield
• Need two holes cut into the top; one for white painted glass for solar radiation and one for glass for UV index

Weather Station Project #9 - Building a Weather and General Info Display

I thought  that I might take some time and figure out a weather display for my PWS.  I am intending on using another RPi, different from the one running the PWS to do the interface to an old monitor that I have lying around.  I intend on have some sort of touch pad and people sensor attached to the RPi and mounted on the top of the monitor; also holding the RPi on the back of the monitor.  The idea is to be able to change what is being displayed, or send it into a rotation mode, by tapping on the touch pads, and have an IR sensor determine when someone walks into the room.  So the requirements look like the following:

(1) Raspberry Pi displaying output from the PWS / Weather Underground / Google Calendar / NOAA radar map / ABC News feed / Fox News feed, etc.

(2) a touch pad connected to the Raspberry Pi which is able to sense a touch and cause the display to change to the desired feed, or conversely to change to an auto rotating display.  The touch pad should also be able to turn the display off (sleep mode).

(3) an IR sensor connected to the Raspberry Pi which will detect when someone enters the room and turn the display on (from sleep mode), it should be able to be set to go into sleep mode automatically after a certain amount of time in which there is no movement in the room.

(4) the Raspberry Pi should be able to be connected to the wi-fi system via a usb adapter and have only a power connection to get it running.

Update: this is a shot of a Raspberry Pi B+, in a case, attached to the back of a Acer touch screen monitor via a little lexan Vesa mount that I picked up at Micro Center for cheap.  I am in the process of setting it up to do the afore mentioned items.  I just picked up the Acer Touch Screen Monitor from Micro Center for about $250.  It's a 21.5 inch screen area with two HDMI ports.  It has it's issues, and no I haven't tried out the touch screen interface on the RPi yet, but seems to be near enough to what I want to use.  Also, it doubles as the display for my Mac Mini.  I got it for a potential portable Weather Display.  BTW, the long adapter is for a Logitech keyboard; small adapter plus an extension.

Weather Station Project #8 - Spatial Consistency Checks failing

I have been checking the CWOP data analysis for my weather station and it is telling me that I am failing the Level 3 Spatial Consistency checks on the Barometer.  What that means is that I am not consistent with the other weather stations around me, so I will have to change.

The Barometer is showing an average barometer error of -1.9 miliBars, a standard deviation of 1.1 miliBars, and a worst daily average barometer error of -2.7 miliBars.  The average error works out to be -0.0561 in HG.  I am going to add a "fudge" factor of this error, wait a week, and see what the analysis brings.  The analysis will flag it as bad just as soon as I add the "fudge" factor for a period of time.  We shall see.

Update: CWOP is reporting that I am even further out from where I should be.  I have decided to remove the "fudge" factor from the weewx configuration file.  The difficulty is that I have apparently not calibrated the ISS/Console unit (per weewx), the output from the console is in SLP (sea level pressure), and CWOP is expecting "Alt" style pressure levels.  I am not sure how weewx is handling this issue.  Right now I do not have the time to really research this out to a conclusion.  I do know that the barometric pressure from a Davis station with weewx has been a hot topic over the last couple of years.  I am giving weewx the benefit of the doubt by relying on their calculations knowing that I am outputting from a Davis station.

Weather Station Project #7 - Display of PWS Information

It occurred to me that I might want to display some of the weather station information that is being created by the Raspberry Pi weewx software.  The RPi that I am using does have a web server running in it and I could have the weewx software extract a specialized data stream which I could display in the living room.  Since I am thinking this would be detached from the current system I would need to sacrifice another RPi and connect it to an unused LCD panel to display the data in real time.  I guess that I could use Chromium for this.  Something to think about.

Update: I did find an interesting simplified instruction for this at http://lokir.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/raspberry-pi-kiosk-mode-with-chromium/ .  To repeat those instructions (reblogged):

1. Install chromium, x11-xserver-utils and unclutter

sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get install chromium x11-xserver-utils unclutter

2. We need to prevent screen from going blank and disable screen saver.
– edit /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart and comment # screen saver line and add those lines:

@xset s off
@xset -dpms
@xset s noblank
@chromium --kiosk --incognito http://some.web.

Looks simple enough!

Weather Station Project #6 - Updated to Stream to the Weather Bug Network

Now that I am signed up for WeatherBug, I am going to use the information at http://sourceforge.net/p/weewx/wiki/weatherbug/ to start streaming.  I am also thinking about a web server application and I notice that you can tweek the weewx code to output ephemeris data along with the plots to a website.  I would also like to plot a starchart for the use of individuals who visit this site (some examples of what I want to do at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/StarChart although it's for the One Laptop project).  I would have to modify this code to put the chart into the html files that are developed via weewx.  More updates later.

Weather Station Project #5 - CWOP up - Adding WeatherBug

The weather station has been humming along very nicely over the past several weeks.  Within a day, my data was put up to Weather Underground and I have been able to review what has been happening on my iPhone apps ever since.  I also got a station ID from CWOP and have been able to update the data to them since.  I got a communique from a CWOP handler and my data has passed the first wicket.  Now I need to find out how good the data is - they are doing some analysis on it.  Hopefully I will meet with a thumbs up and my data will be incorporated into the national weather picture.  My only hesitation at this point is noticing that my barometric pressure reading seems to be higher than the nearest two stations to me consistently.  I may have to calibrate it downward.  I am at a loss to determine how I might measure the value at my house to get an accurate reading.  But I will do some more research and make that determination.

Update: I noticed that the quality control site for my CWOP ID is now reporting an analysis line (as of last night).  So looks like I might be able to get a better feel for what is off kilter now.  Also thinking of putting a patch on the weewx software to send updates to WeatherBug network (if they will have me).

Just signed up for WeatherBug Backyard network.  Have a station ID and information.  Will need to modify the weewx software to accommodate http://sourceforge.net/p/weewx/wiki/weatherbug/ which is a patch to get information out to WeatherBug.

Weather Station Project #4 - Installed weewx on RPi

Whew, after resetting the Vantage Vue console (by pulling the batteries and putting them back in) the USB port came back up.  In addition, the console did not lose any of data that had already been recorded.  I was able to load weewx onto the Raspberry Pi, configure it, and get data.  The steps that I used (from Weewx on Rasp! (Chris Davies-Barnard))were:

(1) used raspi-config on a new SD with Raspbian; set my location (US), keyboard (US), timezone (Eastern), setup SSH, setup expand to full SD size, etc.

(2) added user weewx:
sudo su; adduser weewx; usermod -a -G sudo weewx

(3) added prerequisite packages:
sudo apt-get install python-configobj python-cheetah python-imaging
sudo apt-get install python-serial python-usb
sudo apt-get install mysql-client python-mysqldb
sudo apt-get install python-dev python-pip
sudo pip install pyephem

(4) check to see if ntp was setup correctly

(5) installed weewx:
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/weewx/weewx-2.6.4.tar.gz
tar -xzvf weewx-2.6.4.tar.gz
cd weewx-2.6.4

(6) modify setup.cfg to add root directory:
home = /home/weewx/system25

(7) build and install weewx
python setup.py build
python setup.py install

(8) configure the weewx.conf:
cd /home/weewx/system25
su -l weewx
mkdir public_html
nano weewx.conf
-->>
#debug = 0
WEEWX_ROOT = /home/weewx/system25/
[Station]
location = xxxxxxxx {set to my  home location}
latitude = xxxxxxxx {set to my home latitude, dec degrees}
longitude = xxxxxxxx {set to my home longitude, dec degrees}
altitude = xxxx, foot {set to the altitude of the ISS placement on my roof}
station_type = Vantage
[Vantage]
type = serial
port = /dev/ttyUSB0 {this is the usb port that came up when the Vantage Vue was plugged in}
[StdRESTful]
[[Wunderground]]
station = xxxxxxxxx {set to my Weather Underground station number}
password = xxxxxxxxxx {set to my Weather Underground password for the station}
rapidfire = True
[[CWOP]]
station = xxxxxxx {set to my Citizens Weather station number}

(9) mod the permissions on the usb port and check the weewxd run
sudo chmod 777 /dev/ttyUSB0
./bin/weewxd weewx.conf

after weewx connects to the console, you should see lots of packets of weather data dumped onto the command line.  stop with a control-c

(10) start the weewxd in the background and check that it is still there
nohup ./bin/weewxd weewx.conf > /dev/null & echo $! > run.pid

this will start weewxd with our configuration file setup and send the command line into a null dev black hole.  We will still be sending packets of weather data to Weather Underground and the Citizens Weather (CWOP) locations.

(11) check the running of weewxd:
ps -e | grep weewxd

Update: I need to setup /etc/rc.local to run weewxd on boot.  I encountered a storm after my weather station was running for several days and the power went out and stopped the data flow.  I discovered this when I went to Weather Underground during the storm to see how it was recording rainfall and I notice it had been off for 20 minutes.

Weather Station Project #3 - Setup of RPi

I worked on the interface from RPi to the Vantage Vue console last night.  I started with the latest version of Raspbian but found that raspi-config would not allow me to open up the SSH server.  I back peddled to the July 2013 version and that seemed to give me the ability to setup the SSH server and then update/upgrade to the latest versions of the software.  I was using portions of the procedure from Weewx on Rasp! (Chris Davies-Barnard).  I used the instructions to setup the weewx user, install the prerequisites, install weewx, and configure.  I have not tested the weewx install with the console at this point, that is tonight.  Update to follow.

Update: I added the weewx software to the RPi and then proceeded to put the USB interface on the Vantage Vue.  But, I didn't turn the power off to the console before mounting it!  That I believe is a mistake.  Now, I cannot get the weewx to communicate with the console.  My only hope is unplugging the power and doing a hard reset to the console.  Hopefully the USB port will come up like I want it to.  Otherwise, I am out the cost of the USB port and/or possibly a console which was messed up.  My setup is below.



I did some thinking about how I wanted to add both a UV and Light (for Solar Radiation) sensor to another RPi and connect it to the weewx software.  This should be easy since weewx is written in Python.  Here is my idea so far:

Weather Station Project #2 - Vantage Vue is in

I received the Davis Instruments Vantage Vue weather station. The box looks like so

I was rather pleased with the quality of the product. The reviews on Amazon rate it as a 4.5 out of 5 with 309 reviews. I generally don't like to order something without at least 50 - 100 reviews so this is way past that point. My son-in-law was nice enough to come over and put it up on the roof for me.


I got the ISS to mate with the console and it has been working for the last couple of days without any problem.


I am also now exploring the use of the RPi with weewx software to link into Weather Underground and with NOAA.

-- LW