Blog

  • More Progress

    I started out working on the weather station today by running wire from the control panel to the rain gauge stand. Wow, about an our later I got that done. At first I couldn’t push the cable past the first bend. So I tried using the string and plastic bag method, but I didn’t have AC out there to run a vacuum. So I tried a battery operated blower, in reverse. When that didn’t work I tried using it to blow the plastic through, feeding a little bit of string at a time. Finally, I brought out a battery pack and used an inflator, but still, not enough movement. What I found is I never moved the plastic at all! From there I just bent the end of the cable, and it pushed through. Of course it would work now.

    Once evening came, I went out again to work on the piece to mount the rain gauge to. It isn’t the best, and I don’t think the wood is treated, so we will just call it temporary. I did get the rain gauge mounted though!

    With that, I now have the program, database, and web interface for PEMS7 active, with the rain gauge as the first sensor!

  • Just working on my weather station

    It is slow going sometimes.

    Weather Station control panel

    It has been a long time coming here. Most of the actual development time has been on the weather station control panel. It takes 24 VDC and converts it to what is needed for the sensors, as well as for the media converter and Odroid-C4 mounted inside.

    Control panel, with trench and conduit running to a white vertical pipe.

    The first sensor is going to be the rain gauge, if it still works by the time I have the mount finished. Normally, this has been a very long line from the collector to the rain gauge, up to 70 feet. This time, it will be less than 15 feet.

    More to come soon, I hope.