Meeting #2
-Order solar power battery
-Report on outside Cat5e wiring
-Design station base
-Develop a materials list for the station base
-Implement Database
-Setup DMSWeather Network
I did some testing with my own ESP8266s and I can’t seem to re-create the issue we had. I’m at a loss as to why it won’t connect to the “DMS Member” wifi network.
Might just be a faulty chip or fried during hook-up… i’ve only done that 6 or 7 times. Depending on the number of output pins y’all require, I’d recommend using the Wemos (pretty sure it’s the same chip as ESP8266) through the Arduino IDE or checking out the RasPi 0. I have much experience hooking the Wemos up to the DMS network and find it can go from working great to suddenly slowing down to a halt forcing a reloading of the code. Y’all might just have caught it at a peak usage hour or something.
Awesome and muy bueno. Lately, we haven’t had much trouble with connecting through the chip. Can’t wait to see what’s coming! Also, I think but am not sure that connection might be better in some parts of the building than others
I’ll send you an email with the information we have so far. If you’d like to help document just let me know what information you need to do this. I believe @denzuko is going to set up our database this weekend. Something like this needs to be documented. Also the board came with it’s own software:
shout out to @brianbterry for helping out last night.
FYI: Hardware isn’t my forte
What he found is that DMS Member and DMS Guest are apparently both 5GHz. Our board is 2.4GHz. I’m not quite sure why those two frequencies would keep us from connecting but we were still able to connect to DMS Guest.
Using the GPIO0 pin he was able to reboot the board back to configuring the wifi settings. We tried DMS Member again and still were unable to connect.
I’ve started acquiring components. If anyone wants to help with the construction (such as it is) let me know. Otherwise I’ll just put it together at home and bring the completed parts in.
Construction will likely take less than an hour and consists of a 2x4 frame for the base, a “Homer” pickle bucket bolted to the frame and filled with concrete, with a capped 6’ PVC pipe sticking out the top.
The box of electronics and the secondary mast with the sensors will be attached later.
I see the specs for the solar supply side, but has anyone measured the power consumption of the weather monitor with the sensors you have planned to determine how much solar power you need?
We will not be using the weather monitor for the final install. All weather display will be pushed to a database and then eventually weather underground.
I believe @HankCowdog and @denzuko have already made calculations during our meeting last Monday. There’s a link above to the board and sensor spec sheet. I will post all the resources that we are using here shortly.
@wandrson would you mind running the calculations again to make sure we are on track?
I suggest that you get actual measurements of current consumption with the equipment your planning to use, instead of relying on published specifications. I wouldn’t purchase, or move ahead with the solar panel sizing until you have done that.
Thank you, now exactly how would we go about that. I’m teaching myself electronics at the moment so the only way I can think of to do that is to use a multi-meter and take measurements.
However to me that’s like measuring acceleration (current point in time) vs. average speed (an overall view of velocity). - meaning that we need to know how long its going to last all day vs. taking a measurement for 5 seconds.
Is there a device that we can attach to the board that can give us a constant reading of current throughout the day? Or at least how would you go about it?
Get the weather station up an running with all of the sensors your planning on. Doesn’t have to be in finished installtion form, just have all of the electronics working. Then you measure the current draw while it is operating. This gives you an estimated power draw. Add 20%. That gives you a good estimate of your needed power budget.
Then to estimate your solar supply requiremenst, you need to be able to supply that power budget for the day, directly from the solar power PLUS the store the needed power in the batteries to run when the sun isn’t out. This basic value needs to be factor up to account for cloudy days, lower conversion, etc.
So for instance if you have a 10W panel, that is 10W under ideal conditions, but you will usually get less power then that out of it. Most likely about 70-80% of that rated value. You need to have enough power available to run your station AND recharge the batter from the night drain. But you may have two or more consecutive days of cloud cover (more the less likely you will have a power failure under prime weather conditions). This means you need enough battery power to last through 48-72 hours of consumption with no recharge… And potentially under high or low temperatures where battery performance is likely to be bad. So your additional power requirements need to be able to replace somewhat more (say 20%) then what you drain in a typically night so that you could slowly recharge the battery when you have the occasional cloudy day.
All that said, it should become apparent, that I don’t think solar is a good choice…
What I am doing with mine is running DC to the station, and using a power monitor (wtachdog) from the same supplier, to detect if power goes out. That kicks in a small LiPo battery to provide UPS service for a couple of hours. The line powered DC supplies trickle charging to the LiPo through the same watchdog power board I mentioned…
Revise project plan
