I want my own weather station!

[swincher]

Another Linux user. I’ve used Debian for years now with no regrets. Has also made raspberry pi tinkering easier since that uses a Debian-based Linux OS.

WeeWX looks great, can’t wait to mess around with it after work today. I currently don’t have a real weather station but I have a couple raspberry pis with i2c temperature sensors, and playing with WeeWX might be the impetus I need to finally get a proper weather station too.

Here’s the dashboard I made for my raspberry pis, which is just a mySQL database and an off-the-shelf JavaScript library for rendering graphs:

[don1357]

I’m a Linux guy so the ability to dump it into a MySQL database definitely works for me.

Between now and then (too many projects, too little time) is there a place I could get data on the amount of sunlight received? This season has been weird; super late spring and a bunch of overcast days. When your sun-hours are concentrated in 17-hour days missing a few of those can have an impact. Missing a solid week or two and some stuff may never ripen.

[CRhode]

@don1357

Is there a place I could get data on the amount of sunlight received?

• PWS Individual Stations: Example
• CWOP Solar Radiation Data: Download

I don’t have a handle on how valuable these may be to you.

[anon47724557]

Davis is the primo weather station. Check weatherunderground. Your neighbors may already be posting. There are several stations within a mile of my house. #91 is about a block away from my house. WunderMap® | Interactive Weather Map and Radar | Weather Underground

[TN-Apple]

Also like Davis. Better quality and wireless range than the cheaper ones. Also still working after many years. Unfortunately have to put out more $ up front

[don1357]

I see the stations and I see a few near my house. I can’t seem to find what I’m looking for, amount of sun hours this season.

[anon47724557]

There are already 7 stations within a couple blocks of me on weatherunderground so I don’t have a station myself! Looked at this one a few years back:

Vantage Pro2

[don1357]

I’m poking around and I’m just not seeing the data I want, which is the amount of sunlight for this growing season.

[wdingus]

It’s dark outside right now, heavy rain from Fred.

$ curl -s https://swd.weatherflow.com/swd/rest/observations/station/24484?token={redacted} | jq -r ‘[.obs[].uv, .obs[].brightness, .obs[].solar_radiation] | @tsv’
0 316 2

So zero UV currently, 316 lux, and 2 watts per meter squared.

Fetch that data on a regular interval and shove it into a database and graph it or slice/dice it any way you want later.

An observation on the Weatherflow Tempest specifically, no moving parts. Nothing spins to measure wind, nothing fills with water to measure precip. That “zero maintenance” aspect is one thing that drew me to it.

Oh and speaking of rain:

$ curl -s https://swd.weatherflow.com/swd/rest/observations/station/24484?token={redacted} | jq .obs[].precip_accum_last_1hr
23.052743

Must be in MM, converts to just under an inch, which matches the webUI.

[wdingus]

Interesting: WeatherFlow Tempest Log Collector – Lux4rd0 Labs

[don1357]

I know, which is the reason why I want to setup my own station. I’m asking if there is a source out there on the internet where I can find the amount of sunlight we have received this past season, information I won’t be able to retroactively collect.

[wdingus]

Gotcha… The Tempest API appears to only provide back to “yesterdays” data looks like.

TIME FILTER - Get an entire day of observations by UTC day offset.

0 - Current day UTC
1 - Yesterday UTC

[LordRatner]

So I just finished up my rather over-the-top setup, and figured I’d share.

I have ~20 trees and I decided to put an underground irrigation system where each tree has it’s own zone. 24 valves at the moment using OpenSprinkler. I wanted the system to be fully automated and account for rainfall. I use Raspberry Pis for many projects, so my plan was to get a rain gauge and wire it to the Pi, track the rain and inject that into a formula for watering the trees.

Then I discovered WeeWx…

Since I was already doing to bucket, and WeeWX offers a much more elegant way of monitoring and databasing weather data, I decided to get a weather station in addition to the rain gauge. The best rain gauge I could find is the RainWise RAINEW 111 8" tipping bucket. I decided on the Ecowitt (available in the US under Ambient Weather) WS80 weather station because it has no moving parts. This uses a GW1100 Weather-station-to-WIFI gateway which WeeWX has a driver to poll every 20 seconds.

WeeWX also offers an MQTT integration, so my home automation can tie into anything reported by the station (e.g., turn off the exterior lights is solar radiation > xx, stop watering if currently raining, close the garage door if winds > xx mph for xx minutes, you get the idea).

I had to write my own service for WeeWX to integrate the wired rain gauge, but I have a hobbyist background in Python so it wasn’t too difficult. The WeeWX developers are active and helpful.

Then I discovered the Belchertown skin for WeeWX… and since I already have my own webserver…

So now I have the weather station up and running. The whole setup is powered by a 20w solar panel and 18Ah LiFePO4 battery, though I may need to boost that, we’ll see.

You can see the output here: https://wx.sethratner.com

With the MQTT integration the webpage grabs updates from the weather station every 20 seconds. WeeWX logs the conditions into the database every 5 minutes for analytics, graphing, and in my case, modifying watering schedules based on temps, solar radiation levels, and rainfall amounts. New “reports” are generated every 15 minutes, but all these timings are customizable. And it all runs on a $10 Raspberry Pi.
Finished Setup

Black Box open showing Raspberry Pi and Stepping Voltage Converter (7.5vdc) for the Open Sprinkler

Battery wired in a cheap ammo can from Wal-Mart, wired with a cigarette lighter plug

The WS-80. The wire is for a heater in icy weather. I will mount it at 15’ eventually

My next chore is writing the actual program and associated algorithms to water the trees. It’ll use the WeeWX database and send commands to the OpenSprinkler using http. That’s not needed till Spring though.

I’d be happy to help anyone who wants to make a similar setup, though the more different you make it from my system, the more comfortable you’ll need to be with Python, Linux, soldering, and webhosting.

[disc4tw]

Wow Seth, that is an amazing setup. Thanks for sharing. One zone per tree sounds like a labor of love! Have you considered setting up a zone for multiple trees that you expect to have similar irrigation requirements?

Also - do you have photos of the irrigation setup process? I started a thread more focused on diy irrigation that I think would be incredibly helpful for people to reference your setup in the future.

Let's talk (budget conscious) homeowner scale irrigation

For someone who is newer to the intricacies of growing fruit and being raised in the suburbs, my knowledge of “irrigation” started with a garden hose and a sprinkler I ran through as a child. I never put any thought into it the last couple of years having pawpaws and a few raised beds, but after learning that our hanging baskets didn’t like months on end of drought without being watered every day, I decided this is the year to automate and save myself a large amount of time, time that I can spen…

[LordRatner]

I think I’ve posted in there, I’ll take a look and add an update. But that thread is titled “budget conscious”… Mine is more “unconscious from budget!”

[disc4tw]

Even so, I bet your methodology could be applied to similar components at lower cost. It’s definitely a location specific setup too, I’m sure you get less rain and have more of a need for flexibility than we do in Pennsylvania.

[LordRatner]

Posted: Let's talk (budget conscious) homeowner scale irrigation - #53 by LordRatner

My goal is to create a program that:

• Adjusts watering intervals based on cumulative heat and solar radiation (HeatAdjust)
• Cuts watering amount during a ripening window
• Tracks the amount of rain the orchard gets to subtract from watering routines (RainAdjust)
• Logs the watering amounts over time

And a template for each tree with inputs for:

• Water needs (inches of rain) per Watering Interval
• Watering rate of that zone based on emitter setup and root area (Inches/Hour)
• Heat factor: modifier for HeatAdjust
• Watering Interval in days
• Ripening window start, stop and reduction %
• A first-year setting for watering more often for an establishing tree

Put in new tree, input the settings, and hopefully forget about watering for the season. Next I need a spraying robot…

[murky]

Thanks for sharing the link. This is the closest to me, maybe 4 miles away, a little North and West of me:
https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/timeseries.php?sid=C8164&num=168&banner=gmap&raw=0&w=325

[CRhode]

WeeWX is a software program, running on Linux operating systems to retrieve historical readings from miniature backyard weather stations and maintain an up-to-date database.

I’ve updated my Phenology Extension to v1.3 for WeeWX 4.6.2. There are no new features.

My WeeWX extension may be downloaded from its own Web site, which assumes the reader has already installed WeeWX and is familiar with its architecture and configuration.

The discussion on the Web site about phenology in general and the need for models of insect and plant development is aimed at enthusiasts. Casual readers may, of course, skip the boring bits.

Suffice it to say that phenology is the study of seasonal biological development. Growth of plants and animals is dependent on food, nutrients, water, and light. Assuming that these are abundant, the factor that determines the speed of development is temperature. Models of crop and insect development are thus based on daily temperatures. Developmental stages are observed to follow the product of temperature and time: Growing Degree-Days.

The Web site delves into chemical treatments for apple codling moth, using this insect as an example of applying a Growing Degree-Day developmental model to a real-world problem. The data from a weather station tracks daily minimum and maximum temperatures, and my WeeWX extension charts when egg laying is likely to be occurring based on cumulative Growing Degree-Days. Then orchard spraying can begin with less risk of waste due to starting too early or too late.

[clarkinks]

The tempest has a coupon if that is what you’re looking for Amazon.com