16-07-2016, 10:45
Thank you for sharing your experiences, it's interesting and very helpful.
I'm particularly interested in your experiences with solar power. A few weeks ago I set up a 50W solar panel feeding a 110Ah battery via a PWM controller which is intended to power the weather station and also some led lighting in the garden. It's working perfectly now of course, it's middle of the summer here - although it's hard to believe with temperature over the last few months around 16-18 degrees and the sun only occasionally showing itself through the clouds
Even so, there will be a *lot* less daylight in the winter but more use of the led lighting, so I will probably need, like you, to backup with mains power.
I think you made an excellent point about fuses. Even a 12Ah battery can cause a lot of damage if a short-circuit occurs so I was quite worried about using something as huge as 110Ah located in the shed, some distance away from what it is powering. I eventually discovered some very useful "cube fuses" that can be attached directly to my battery terminals. As the lowest available is rated at 50A, I do also use separate inline fuses at the Weatherduino and led lighting, but hopefully the huge explosion that 110A all escaping at once would cause will be prevented....
For anyone interested, a link to Cube Fuses...
My sensors which are all the old FO ones right now, along with the Weatherduino, are at the top of a ground-mounted pole which is next to the garden shed. Even so I do get a lot of vibration in the pole in high winds which I suspect interferes with accuracy. I now have a Davis 6410 anemometer & direction sensor ready to put up so will make some other changes at the same time. I'm intending to remove the Weatherduino and it's housing from the pole, make use of the I2C bus extender and place it inside the shed. It will only need about 8 metres of cable back to the T & H sensors up the pole so should be ok.
Thanks again for sharing and I hope the refurbished station continues working well!
Allan.
I'm particularly interested in your experiences with solar power. A few weeks ago I set up a 50W solar panel feeding a 110Ah battery via a PWM controller which is intended to power the weather station and also some led lighting in the garden. It's working perfectly now of course, it's middle of the summer here - although it's hard to believe with temperature over the last few months around 16-18 degrees and the sun only occasionally showing itself through the clouds
Even so, there will be a *lot* less daylight in the winter but more use of the led lighting, so I will probably need, like you, to backup with mains power.I think you made an excellent point about fuses. Even a 12Ah battery can cause a lot of damage if a short-circuit occurs so I was quite worried about using something as huge as 110Ah located in the shed, some distance away from what it is powering. I eventually discovered some very useful "cube fuses" that can be attached directly to my battery terminals. As the lowest available is rated at 50A, I do also use separate inline fuses at the Weatherduino and led lighting, but hopefully the huge explosion that 110A all escaping at once would cause will be prevented....
For anyone interested, a link to Cube Fuses...
My sensors which are all the old FO ones right now, along with the Weatherduino, are at the top of a ground-mounted pole which is next to the garden shed. Even so I do get a lot of vibration in the pole in high winds which I suspect interferes with accuracy. I now have a Davis 6410 anemometer & direction sensor ready to put up so will make some other changes at the same time. I'm intending to remove the Weatherduino and it's housing from the pole, make use of the I2C bus extender and place it inside the shed. It will only need about 8 metres of cable back to the T & H sensors up the pole so should be ok.
Thanks again for sharing and I hope the refurbished station continues working well!
Allan.