How to get started with 1-wire weather?

[mustangcoupe]

So I think I have decided to have 1-wire weather station as one of my next projects... (Im not sure how soon but it dosnt heart to ask)

So How do I get started with 1-wire weather? What do I need, how does it work, what is the recommended starting point? What is used for exterior wire? ect ect ect.... any and all information would be great

 

[jaysonc]

I sourced all of my weather station parts from http://www.hobbyboards.com

For outside, I bought some 1/2 in waterproof conduit from home depot and buried it along the base of my fence. A junction box at either end to keep out the bugs then filled it with normal cat5. This gave me a nice install with an good base to make future cable runs easy. The only challenge was how to get my pull cord down 100ft of tubing. Reflection over dinner and the handy use of a shop vac resolved it in record time!

There are a lot of ways to interface with the 1-wire network, but I am partial to the HA7Net.

It is not the cheapest solution, but it is rock solid, contains 3 1-wire branche and decouples the 1-wire bus adapter from your computer.
All of these feature help to minimize the 1-wire bus length.

For software, I am using a nice perl script that runs a daemon on one of my computers. It is called thermd. It supports all 1-wire interfaces and sensors I am aware of, generates graphs and can upload your weather data to weatherunderground.com

--
Jayson

 

[HansF]

Buy some DS18S20 sensors from Hobby Boards and a USB adapter and start experimenting. Just solder the sensors to a CAT5 cable (blue for signal, blue/white for ground) and place them somewhere. Otherwise buy Hobby Board sensor boards and connect them with network cables. Then you find you want to buy your own CAT5 cable and tools to connect your own RJ45 connectors, because things never work out the way you want . If you buy AAG sensors realize they use RJ12 connectors. All 1-wire adapters use RJ12 connectors, but if you use HB sensor boards you can take a RJ45 network cable and use a file to sand off the sides of one connector to the width of a RJ12 which will fit the 1-wire adapter. HB sells converter cables too, but it took me 15 minutes and an old network cable to save me a couple of US$. Have fun, --Hans

 

[skyewright]

The only challenge was how to get my pull cord down 100ft of tubing. Reflection over dinner and the handy use of a shop vac resolved it in record time!

Great idea. I have a problem like that looming. You've saved me having to put the thinking cap on?

I'm assuming you used the vac to suck (or blow) something attached to a thread through, then used that to pull a stronger cord through until you had something strong enough to drag the CAT5 through?

Am I on the right track?

 

[mustangcoupe]

I have actually done this meny times... I used string from Home Depot for pulling wire. shop vac sucks it right through the pipe

 

[jaysonc]

I put a small piece of cardboard on the end of the string to increase the surface area (and velocity of the threading action).

For a pull string I just use that cheap, white nylon cord. It is a little stretchy, but it is small and stronger than I am.

--
Jayson

 

[Lagerhead]

So How do I get started with 1-wire weather?

What about wind speed and direction. What are good options for an anemometer?

 

[jaysonc]

I started with the guidelines at this link, but eventually ended up mounting to to the side of my chimney due to the limited yard size I have.

I used a very robust PVC pipe capped at both ends and painted to match the chimney color. I was able to use lag screws as my chimney is wooden, but there are a lot of brackets made for brick chimneys as well.

--
Jayson

So How do I get started with 1-wire weather?

What about wind speed and direction. What are good options for an anemometer?

 

[EL34]

They sell direct buriable cat5 cable.
I used 100ft of it to go out to my greenhouse.

Way easier than sch40 pipe and regular cat 5.

do a google search for direct buriable cat 5