WeatherDuino Forum

After two months of constructing the WeatherDuino Pro2 project in my limited free time, I am pleased to announce that today this hardware went live on my website, http://palmyweather.co.nz without a hiccup. This weather station is based in the city centre of Palmerston North, the heart of the Manawatu region in New Zealand.

Werk_AG asked me to write about my experience in construction of this system and why I started it in the first place.

I was in search of a more reliable weather station than what the Fine Offset system offers. After having so much trouble with down time and false data readings, I needed something that I could trust.

Last year I started my search and came across the WeatherDuino Pro2 project but did not feel confident to undertake the project as, despite the forum, there did not seem to be much information about the construction of the system. Early this year I, like many in New Zealand and Australia, followed the four part series in the “Silicon Chip” magazine. This gave me the desire to do more research into the project and undertake the build.

I was amazed as to how quickly the circuit boards, including the additional UV/Solar kit, arrived after placing the order from the forum. The circuit boards were of very high quality and well designed with all the parts clearly marked out. The majority of individual components were locally sourced from my local Jaycar Electronics retailer so I did not have to wait on delivery for most of the parts.

One thing did catch me out with the parts I needed to order online. Some online sites were advertising their transmitter/receiver modules as “KXD – 10036” and had pictures to match what is shown on this forum... but sadly when they arrive, they were not the correct parts. This added another 3 weeks delivery time waiting on the correct parts to arrive.

Once assembled, the WeatherDuino Pro2 system booted up first time without any trouble. This somewhat amazed me as I was expecting to have done something wrong and not work, either in the soldering of components or programming of the Arduinos.

With a working system, it was time for a burn in test while I worked on the housing of the boards in project boxes. Working on and designing how these boards were going to be mounted in their boxes and how the sensors would connect to them in a modular way took a lot longer than I was expecting. But I did not want to rush it as I wanted to ensure that I would be happy with the end result, which I am.

The transmitter box is very tight, but does fit (just) a 7.2Ah 12V SLA battery and a solar charge controller as well. A 10w solar panel will be used to keep this battery topped up. I also used very low current fans on this project, this enabled me to have one fan in the radiation shield and two fans on the transmitter box to keep the inside cool on hot days. One fan blows air in while the other sucks air out. I did this as I want to keep the circuit board cool and even more important the SLA battery; I think that box will get very hot in the middle of summer.

My receiver consists of a 20x4 LCD with 3 push buttons on the front to keep it formal. The switches have LED rings on around the buttons which saved extra holes in the box and kept it presentable. From left to right, we have a power button with LED to indicate it is on mains power. Middle switch is a momentary button which toggles the backlight with the LED flashing to indicate data is being received from the TX unit. Finally is the switch which toggles between uploading data to weather software and programming mode. I did think about not even bothering with this switch, but the LED is functional and flashes as data is sent to the weather software. I wanted an LCD with blue back light and white text; this is another example of where I made a purchase online with all the text and images lining up with what I wanted, but receiving something completely different. Having said that, I think all and all I am okay with the LCD being black text with yellow backlight.

Ultimately I hope to have this system connected to a Raspberry Pi (or similar) with Cumulus MX running, but until then the system is connected to a small form factor PC which has been running since I started my gathering of weather data. I do like the idea of potentially having the Raspberry Pi system installed in the TX box and maybe having a mobile 3G module connected to it. This would truly create a stand-a-lone system which could be installed anywhere.


As a tip to people who undertake this project in the future, make sure that you have all the components and parts before you start – I know this has been said in other parts of the forum, but it will be a big help. And ask questions to sellers of components to ensure you are getting what you are expecting to get.

I do have a couple of minor suggestions for improvements to this project. One would be a power blocking diode to be installed on both the RX and TX boards to stop any potential damage to the system if the power source was accidently connected the wrong way around. I did not think of this until I mistakenly connected the batter on the TX unit around the wrong way one evening; thankfully I only popped the fuse I had installed and did not damage anything else, but the potential is there. As a minor cosmetic design and afterthought, I would mount a USB port on the side of the RX unit so that the USB cable does not connect to the system in the top of the unit. This, as I said, is only for cosmetic appearance. Finally, I would love to see room for an Arduino Rain Sensor to be connected to the TX unit. Often we get misty rain which is not enough to accumulate in the rain bucket and make it tip, but is enough to make washing outside damp etc; would be good to know and get data on this somehow.


I would highly recommend that others undertake this project as you will hopefully be as happy with the results as I am. The system is so dynamic! Spend as much or as little as you like, or add to it as times goes on; that is what this project offers. EG: If you want to have more precise temperature readings, you can integrate a more accurate temperature sensor – it is up to you, it is as simple as that. The support that Werk_AG offers is also fantastic. Thank you Werk_AG for all the help that you have offered during my build and for sharing such a fantastic project with us all.

Fantastic write up. Very professional looking job done too.
Thanks for posting this.

Thank you for having writing about your personal experience with the WeatherDuino Pro2 system.
Your system looks great, certainly building it made you spend many working hours, I hope that those hours were of pleasure too.
The button with a LED, produces a nice effect. It's amazing seeing how each one finds a different solution. I think there isn't two equal systems...

Again, thank you!

Awesome job Palmyweather and a great write-up.

Just in case people are interested, I have attached a video of the receiver at work with a bit of a text explanation which might give some people ideas for their own system.


As you can see from the video, I have changed the way the LCD screen displays the information. I have the temperature at the top of the screen which cycles between indoor and outdoor.

In the middle, I have the wind speed and direction which displays the wind gust information rather than the average wind speed. This maximises the frequency of updates from the outside unit (every 5 seconds); one of the most frequent updated pieces of information this station has.

The last line cycles through the barometric pressure, rain fall, solar radiation and UV index reading. This is information which, although important, changes slower/less frequently than other aspects and therefore a slower cycle time between data being displayed can be afforded.

I am very happy with how this shows the information for what I require but I understand that this might now be what everyone is after. That is the benefit of this system, it is fully customisable to your needs.

Nice video and well documented, thank you very much for having done it.
I see you did some customizing in the LCD code, to suite your preferences, and also some hardware changes (red led on, when in program mode). Good work!

I will put a sticky in this post, for a while.

To a lot of people, the temperature sensor is one of the most important part of their weather station and is often in discussion on how to keep it as accurate as possible.

For me, this was also important. As I had an abundance of Fine Offset weather station parts, I thought I would use the radiation shield supplied. As you can see in the photos, I screwed the bracket through the top of the radiation shield and sealed it up, this also provided an easy and clean access point for the cable to enter.

I used a SHT10 temperature sensor which I covered with expanded white sound dampening carpet (similar to what cotton-wool is but will last/durable) to help protect the sensor form build up of dirt and hopefully keep it more accurate as time goes on. I carefully bent the cable so that the sensor would sit suspended in the middle of the radiation shield, not touching any plastic and with good airflow around it.

The 40mm fan fitted nicely with a bit of hot glue in the bottom. I chose to blow air into the radiation shield from the bottom as this would hopefully stop heat build up in the top of the cover.

I can mount my temperature sensor two ways, directly on the mast of my transmitter, or to make it more accurate, I have attached it to the cool/sun free side of the house for best results.

To achieve this I built a 10m (33 feet) extension fly-lead with the harsh environmental plugs I used on the outside of the transmitter box. The cable I used is double shielded with braid and foil wrap to cut down on any interference, the same type I used on all my other sensors. I was sceptical that this would work, but it has not missed a beat so far.

Hope this gives some ideas for others in their development of this project.

Thanks for sharing your developments. Communication with the SHT1X sensors is not as sensible as with SHT2x family. Is good to know that is working well with a 10 meter cable.

(02-12-2015, 08:18)Palmyweather Wrote: [ -> ]After two months of constructing the WeatherDuino Pro2 project in my limited free time, I am pleased to announce that today this hardware went live on my website, http://palmyweather.co.nz without a hiccup.

Very nice work, congratulations ...

Very professional, you are to be congratulated, thank you for sharing,