The ground pin from the load connection on the charger are connected directly to system ground, with the positive output pin connected to a nice slide switch. The entire system draws roughly 300 mAh, so it should have plenty of power to last through a long night before charging again during the day. The charger has two JST sockets: one for the battery and the other to the load. A small solar panel feeds roughly 6 volts at around 330 mAh (on a bright day) into the DC input pins of an Adafruit solar Lithium Polymer battery charger. The power system for the weather station is entirely self-contained (no external charging ports!).
The illustration above is a hybrid block diagram/schematic since nearly all of the electronics are complete modules (the attachment is the Sharp sensor data sheet). Here's a breakdown of the different electrical systems.
The system is built using point-to-point wiring with only a handful of splices using as many temporary male to female header connections as possible to keep soldering to a minimum. In order to speed up the build process, I chose sensors that came on breakout boards with the standard 2.54 millimeter pin out.
WEATHER PORTHOLE SOFTWARE
The software is discussed more in detail on step 10. Developing with Arduino style syntax allowed me to work quickly, since it is my go to environment for interactive projects. The actual software is the Wiring language written in Intel's custom Arduino IDE. In order to minimize the amount of time I spent writing code, I chose sensors that were already well documented and had either libraries or simple analog interfaces. The hardware design is explained more in-depth on step 5. A large galvanized ventilation tube provides a weather resistant housing for the the additional sensors that need to be "exposed" to the elements for proper data collection.
WEATHER PORTHOLE SERIES
A series of laser cut panels form the headpiece for mounting a couple of the sensors, and a solid mount place for the solar panel and power electronics. A conduit tube forms the core of the body and a solid mounting point for the other components. The main body consists mostly of parts available from a hardware store. The electrical design and components are discussed in depth on the following step.
WEATHER PORTHOLE BLUETOOTH
The Edison board has very low current draw and Bluetooth and WiFi radios should I want to add wireless connectivity later on. This setup allows the station to run remotely and, barring excessive daily darkness, a reasonably endless run time. I wanted to the make the weather station low maintenance, so I decided to make it solar powered with a built-in beefy (by embedded project standards) Li-Po battery pack. The weather station has a lot of distinct parts and goals to simplify the design process I broke it down into three distinct parts: electrical, hardware, and software. I wanted the system to collect and store a handful of metrics: wind speed, light, humidity, temperature, pressure, and air quality. While more useful as a network, I designed a single node as this would be a practical introduction to weather data gathering. At it's most basic, a weather station is any system that gathers environmental/climate data. WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including lead, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm.
WEATHER PORTHOLE FREE
Horizontal configuration mounts on wall or stands free.Three instruments mounted on mahogany hardwood plaque.The highly polished brass instruments will never tarnish or discolor. This three instrument nautical weather station includes a quartz clock, barometer, and comfortmeter (thermometer/hygrometer) that are set in mahogany finished hard wood that can be wall-mounted horizontally or stand free on a desk or shelf.
The Porthole Weather Center is a great gift for anyone who likes to keep an eye on the weather.
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