WeatherStation

intro

This is an interesting, useful project that will allow me to test out many of the systems that I would use in a space balloon/drone aircraft project. I would like to put the station on the ridge behind my folks place and run the base station out of the house. This gives me at least a 1/4mi of seperation between the base and weather station. Because the weather station is located in a remote area it will have to generate its own power and may not be able to run continuously.

Environmental Monitoring

• Temperature
• Camera (it would be nice to have a clear view of something, maybe motion trigger for photographing wildlife)
• Windspeed
• Sun Strength

Power Generation

The best options are wind and solar and they aren't great options given that the station will likely be under the tree canopy (thus blocking the wind and sun). I'll have to scope out the best location, perhaps theres a sunny knoll I can place it on.

Wind

I want to be able to measure the wind speed as well as harness some energy from it. I'm not sure that this is going to work but it would be nice to build a vertical axis windmill so that the amount of current generated is proportional to the windspeed and low speed winds would still be able to generate some current.

Solar

Pretty straightforward - put solar panels on the weather station to charge up the batteries. If there is a free ADC channel I suppose I could monitor the solar power generation as well.

-- ChristopherPepe - 25 Feb 2007