Advice on cables for home made weather station

[Ardni]

Hi,
I am currently building a home made weather station. Initial testing is complete and all sensors are working correctly indoors with short cables. The next step is to mount the sensors outside and I am looking for a little advice as to what type of cabling I should use and any general advice that I should be aware of.

Basically my station consists of the following:
Wind anemometer - Inspeed Vortex which produces 3V pulses which are counted by a micro
WInd Vane - Inspeed E-vane which produces a voltage between .25V and 4.75V depending on direction
DS18B20 temp sensor
SHT15 humidity sensor
SCP1000 pressure sensor
Hobby boards (rainwise) rainfall gauge

Anyway the anemometer and wind vane come with "exterior grade" cable which does seems quite slim. It consists of two/three stranded wires which are not twisted or shielded. It also says that the cables are not terminated. I am not sure if I should replace these cables? with something stronger as part of the cable will have to go outside. Also as regards the termination, would there be any need to do anything? I am interfacing all sensors to an arduino.
The same applies for the rainfall gauge, it has a light cable which i am not sure if I should replace. (I did read something in Tom Bitsons book weather toys which I saw snippets on google books where he said that the cable should be replaced or potential problems could arsie, but he did not say what the problems may be). I would be grateful if someone could fill me in on the details of what issues could arise (if any) if the cable was not replaced and also what options (cable types) and advantages there would be if the cable was changed.

For the temperature and humidity humidity sensors I am planning on using cat5 cable, which from reading on the web seems to be the norm. But is it ok to run cat5 cable outdoors?

One final question, since I have some sensors which use a digital interface and other which are purely analog, would anyone see any potential problems when all sensors are mounted outside and connected to the arduino. I am thinking of signal integrity issues etc. Are there any precautions I should have in mind?

Many thanks for the advice.

 

[ctwilliams]

Hi,
I am currently building a home made weather station. Initial testing is complete and all sensors are working correctly indoors with short cables. The next step is to mount the sensors outside and I am looking for a little advice as to what type of cabling I should use and any general advice that I should be aware of.

Basically my station consists of the following:
Wind anemometer - Inspeed Vortex which produces 3V pulses which are counted by a micro
WInd Vane - Inspeed E-vane which produces a voltage between .25V and 4.75V depending on direction
DS18B20 temp sensor
SHT15 humidity sensor
SCP1000 pressure sensor
Hobby boards (rainwise) rainfall gauge

Anyway the anemometer and wind vane come with "exterior grade" cable which does seems quite slim. It consists of two/three stranded wires which are not twisted or shielded. It also says that the cables are not terminated. I am not sure if I should replace these cables? with something stronger as part of the cable will have to go outside. Also as regards the termination, would there be any need to do anything? I am interfacing all sensors to an arduino.
The same applies for the rainfall gauge, it has a light cable which i am not sure if I should replace. (I did read something in Tom Bitsons book weather toys which I saw snippets on google books where he said that the cable should be replaced or potential problems could arsie, but he did not say what the problems may be). I would be grateful if someone could fill me in on the details of what issues could arise (if any) if the cable was not replaced and also what options (cable types) and advantages there would be if the cable was changed.

For the temperature and humidity humidity sensors I am planning on using cat5 cable, which from reading on the web seems to be the norm. But is it ok to run cat5 cable outdoors?

One final question, since I have some sensors which use a digital interface and other which are purely analog, would anyone see any potential problems when all sensors are mounted outside and connected to the arduino. I am thinking of signal integrity issues etc. Are there any precautions I should have in mind?

Many thanks for the advice.

I will throw in my two cents. I had used a cheapo Lacrosse (or LaCrap) weather station for a couple of years with their short (30 feet or so) of cable. It worked fine.

When we built the house I moved it to a location about 100' from the house so as to have no tree obstructions, etc. I used high quality cat5 placed in a pvc pipe and buried 2' underground.

It worked well until the first summer lighting storm when the serial port on my computer died. I did not put it together until the third storm (and third serial port). I do not know what it was about that layout, but it did not work.

I guess this just serves as a warning that you may have difficulty if the distance is long.

CT

 

[hucker]

You might want to put an opto isolator on long out door rs232 runs. Here is an example:

http://www.rs232-converters.com/rs232_surge_protector.htm