Noob looking to buy a weather station for a hobby project.

[timuckun]

My criteria are.

1. Has to be able to handle high winds and large rainfall I get at my property.
2. I have to be able to tap into the data stream so I can store and analyze the data (hopefully in realtime).
3. I don't want to spend an arm and a leg.
4. Mac or Linux

I have seen weather stations at Bunnings and on trademe and I have also visited the links that are posted here. Some of the ones on this page Scientific Sales - Complete Stations seem to be available on aliexpress for pretty cheap.

My question is whether or not anybody has been able to tap into the data streams of these or any other weather stations or if it's possible to buy the sensor array and then be able to tap into them using a raspberry pi or an arduino?

Here is one of the items from aliexpress https://www.aliexpress.com/item/MISOL-IP-OBSERVER-Solar-Powered-Wireless-Internet-Remote-Monitoring-Weather-Station/32623952240.html?ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_4_10065_10068_433_434_10136_10137_10138_10060_10062_10141_10056_10140_126_10055_10054_10059_10099_10103_10102_10096_10052_10053_10050_10107_10051_10106_10084_10083_10080_10082_10081_10110_10111_10112_10113_10114_10078_10079_10073_10070_10122_10123_10126_10124-10102,searchweb201603_5,afswitch_1,ppcSwitch_3,single_sort_0_default&btsid=ec955226-af5a-40e7-aa9f-e9546e829fe1&algo_expid=bbd5055a-b727-4d37-856d-9243f0416987-4&algo_pvid=bbd5055a-b727-4d37-856d-9243f0416987

There are many many more.

Thanks.

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[jkjohn]

Have a look at Weewx
weewx: User's Guide

I am using this on a scratch build weather station using arduino's to wirelessly transmit data from the station to a receiver with Weewx running on Debian 8 with LXDE desktop.  Have run it on a Raspberry Pi 3 with no problems.

The docs list a number of weather stations that it can be configure for.

John

[timuckun]

Awesome thanks, I'll definitely look at that.

Where are you located?

[timuckun]

weewx: User's Guide[/url]


So I looked at Weewx and it talks about connecting to the station using serial or USB ports. Is this data delivered in real time from the display? 

Also I would be interested in setting up a station using arduino too where did you go for those resources?

[TonyC]

Hi, John is located in Geraldine. He's tinkering with weather station stuff, but it's not on-line over the internet.
I talked him into signing up with the forum, but he isn't actively participating or monitoring it. I forwarded the link to your post to him, to which he replied.
I suggest you Personal Message him for any additional info you require. You can always post any solutions you find later which may help others going down the same track.

regards,

Tony c.

[timuckun]

Thanks Tony.  I have sent in a message. I don't get email notifications on replies and I presume it's the same for messages so if you could ping him again and tell him there is a message for him I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks.

[jkjohn]

As Tony says I'm a spasmodic forum user.  Just got your email.  Don't need a weather station down here to tell what the weather is doing. Mines gone on the blink so I need a fine day to pull it down and get inside its guts to see whats going on.  Its bee running about 6 months since the last time it went down which was caused by water getting into the wind sensors.  All very well for building you own bits from scratch.  The housing is made out of PVC waste water fittings, bearing from computer hard drives, cups from mini steam pudding containers and so it goes on.
My memory is not that hot, and every time I have to work on it I just about have to start from scratch.
Any way. I don't mine having a conversation with you on Skype.  Will set it up with you.

John

[davidrg]

Where connecting it to a computer is an option this usually seems to be how it works. How real-time it is very much depends on the weather station but I don't know of any that provide actual real-time sensor data.

The older EasyWeather based FineOffset stations like the WH1080/WH2080 have a truly awful USB protocol and don't provide anything that could be considered real-time data. Calling it a protocol is being a bit generous really - you've got to scrape the microcontrollers memory every 48 seconds to look for new data and be careful to only do this while it isn't receiving sensor data otherwise the console crashes (have to unplug it and pull the batteries to reset it). And somehow they even managed to do that wrong - you've got to read each memory address multiple times because sometimes it gives you a garbage answer. Took quite a while before my data logger was able to work around these 'quirks' reliably.

Davis stations on the other hand will just stream updates to you every 2.5 seconds via a fairly simple and well documented protocol over a variety of connections depending on the option you buy (USB, Serial, Ethernet plus some more esoteric options). Nice and easy. They do cost at least an arm though and you can't import the wireless stations yourself (overseas frequency is owned by Vodafone here, the local importer imports a special version I guess).

I've not had a chance to play with the FineOffset WH2600 style stations (the one linked on aliexpress) so I'm not sure what sort of data access it provides but EasyWeatherIP is a thing that exists so I guess there must be some way of pulling data off the thing rather than just pretending to be weatherunderground and having data HTTP POSTed to you. Sensors only update every 14 seconds though.

Mac or Linux support comes down to the software you're using - the hardware itself shouldn't require any special drivers. The USB FineOffset stations appear as a "Dream Link WH1080 Weather Station / USB Missile Launcher" USB HID device and the Davis ones will just appear as something like /dev/ttyS0 or /dev/ttyUSB0 for the USB version (which is just the serial version with a built-in CP210x USB to Serial converter).

For Arduino: Sensirion SHT31 temp+humidity sensors, Bosch BME280 temp+humidity+pressure sensors, the FineOffset wind+rain sensors (such as these) and Nordic nRF24L01+ radios may be worth looking at depending on budget and capabilities you're after. If you want to get really flash KiCAD isn't too difficult to learn and dirtypcbs.com will make you 10+/- copies of a 5x5cm PCB for $17.

The boxy FineOffset rain gauge may struggle with heavy wind/rain as it has quite a shallow funnel with a small opening that blocks up easily. Spiders were a constant problem with mine - had to clear out the spider nests around the tip bucket almost monthly. Perhaps worth considering the Davis 7852M as an upgrade - should hook up in a similar way to the FineOffset one and has never given me any problems on my Vantage Pro2.