WeatherPi Solar Powered Weather Station Deployed Outside

WeatherPi Solar Powered Weather Station Deployed Outside

What is WeatherPi?

SwitchDoc Labs is in the process of building a Solar Powered Raspberry Pi WeatherIMG_3171 Station.   The design will be released as a SwitchDoc Appnote, an Instructable and a series of posts on SwitchDoc.com.  We have now completed the software and we are placing the device outside.  After a few days in the sun, we will post graphs of the data from RasPiConnect.

Brownout Issue

I2C Mux Breakout Board in WeatherPi
I2C Mux Breakout Board in WeatherPi

There is one  issue that still needs to be addressed.  Occasionally, during our testing, the Raspberry Pi is not rebooting after a brownout incident.  It doesn’t happen every time and we are trying to capture the issue.  These once-in-a-while problems are the hardest issues to find in a system.  We are recording a lot of data!   We have simulated the battery going low by substituting a variable power supply for the battery and it reboots every time.   Next we are disconnecting the Voltaics solar panels and letting the battery run down naturally to try to see if the issue repeats.

With the I2C Mux Breakout Board installed, we now have no I2C address conflicts and consequently added the inside humidity sensor back into the system.  We also moved the AM2315 outdoor temperature and humidity sensor to the 5V I2C bus on the SunAirPlus Solar Power Controller and it is working much more reliably than on the 3.3V I2C bus.

solar power
The Slow Death Test on WeatherPi RasPiConnect

WeatherPi Deployed

Now that we can monitor the system remotely using the command line and RasPiConnect, we are putting it outside.   The last item was to use silicon caulk to seal all the mounting screw holes.   The final location of the system will be up on top of the house, but this location is easier to get to.

Plus we have tulips.

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WeatherPi Showing 3D Printed Parts
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SwitchDoc Labs WeatherRack
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Cooking the Solar Panels
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WeatherPi in Temporary Location

 

 

Updated Parts List (April 22, 2015)

Block Diagram

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