Saturday 13 February 2016

Clouds + Home Brew Weather Station (Part 3)

Interesting (to me anyway) mix of clouds spotted yesterday:

DSCN5845

DSCN5847

Today has been grey all day. As the wind is now coming from the East it has felt bitterly cold.


The home brew weather station is still evolving. I spotted a barometric pressure sensor suitable for use with the Arduino and other similar computers. After a hassle with the Arduino IDE not liking the library for it I had to update to the latest version of the IDE (used on the computer for writing the program / instructions / sketch). So far to check the sensor works I have it sending its readings back to the computer for display. As always I found out how to program it by searching the internet. What would I do without it?

Screen Shot 2016-02-13 at 15.24.15

The sensor is tiny, slightly smaller than my thumb nail and a steal at £2.56 (about $3.70). Next will be to add an OLED type display to show the pressure and it will also enable me to show the humidity readings. That's the theory anyway.

There was a strange glitch with the 7 segment displays. The top one kept going blank. Still not sure why. The driver chip can send the display to sleep to save power so that may have been happening at various intervals. It shouldn't as I send a command to wake it up at the start of the program. Then it is supposed to stay awake unless told to sleep. Anyway I added a further wake up instruction every time the display is updated. It's been running on a soak test for nine hours and so far it has displayed everything properly so that will have to do for a cure.

6 comments:

  1. I thought I had problems. It sounds as if it will be good.

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    Replies
    1. Adrian: It's amazing how seemingly simple tasks take the longest.

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  2. I am now eagerly awaiting a daily weather report John - with all its fine detail.

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  3. I am going to have a very nasty chilly cycle to work tomorrow

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    Replies
    1. Simon: This morning our lane is like a skating rink.

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Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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