Done:

New weather Tab in Ekos

Read More...

Most astronomers with an observatory also have some form of weather station collecting all sorts of weather realted info. There are already sophisticated drivers for AAG CloudWatcher and many others. Different setups collect different weather attributes. In this world of climate change such information is increasingly relevant.

As a starting point, I would like to propose that we consider a new tab in Ekos to start to collect and store such information individually, but it could in future have many further possible use-cases. For instance, local astronomers could warn each other automatically about weather events, such as wind or rain. Potentially, it could be stored centrally and made available for R&D, such as Richard Francis' suggestion about deteriating weather corresponding to poorer guiding and other issues.

Other uses case could become available as people experiemnt with further sensors, I am particularly interested in sharing CO2 and CH4 sensor data, where available.

As we are a global community it would be nice to see if we could create a global resource which other communities might find useful too.

Kind regards,

Steve.

Read More...

There is so much information on weather, it would really be nice to have another tab in Ekos to store the readings, don't you think?

I wonder if we can suggest it as a proposal.

Kind regards

Steve.

Read More...

Hi Richard,

Very cool. The attitude sensor, what is that? Does it work out the tilt of your scope?

How much of this can you link into INDI?

Kind regards

Steve.

Read More...

Hi Richard,

That sounds great. I have the Weather Radio Arduino bit working perfectly. The Json seems fine, the INDI client connects and recognises it, but Ekos doesn't seem to collect any data. I don't really understand what's going on.

I'm going to send you a PM.

Kind regards

Steve.

Read More...

There is already a CloudWatcher AAG INDI driver for RPi, so it should be OK.

If it doesn't work, I'd like to know before I go down that route!!

If you're able to give it a spin, I'd love to know.

Kind regards

Steve.

Read More...

Hi Richard,

Thanks for that.

I thought I might get a quick and dirty weather station going, but it's too hard, and doesn't really include rain, which is the must-have component.

My rolloff.ino software seems to work in a test rig, so I can start implement that.

Then I'll go the Cloudwatcher route. Do you have the on the RPi as well?

Thanks for that,

Kind regards

Steve.

Read More...

Actually, there is something in the WeatherRadio log, but not InduinoMETEO

INFO	136.229156 sec	: Session log file /home/pi/.indi/logs/2024-03-10/indi_weatherradio/indi_weatherradio_15:24:34.log
DEBUG	136.229227 sec	: Toggle Logging Level -- Driver Debug
DEBUG	136.229319 sec	: saveConfigItems
DEBUG	136.229899 sec	: Configuration successfully saved.
DEBUG	196.262588 sec	: Sending query: w
INFO	203.292517 sec	: Failed to receive full response: Timeout error. (Return code: -4). Retrying...
INFO	208.296450 sec	: Failed to receive full response: Timeout error. (Return code: -4). Retrying...
INFO	213.301532 sec	: Failed to receive full response: Timeout error. (Return code: -4). Retrying...
DEBUG	213.301593 sec	: Reading weather data from Arduino succeeded.
DEBUG	273.324881 sec	: Sending query: w

So I'm alternating between WeatherRadio and indiduinoMETEO, they both seem to have the same problem. If I use METEOtest, all the hardware works nicely through the Serial connection. When I switch back to either of the other ones, the driver doesn't connect. Also there is nothing in the logs. I've switched on all the options I can find, like 'verbose' etc. The baud rate is set properly, but the connection tag is red. As far as I can see the difference is firmata. Indi-rolloffino also does work and that doesn't use firmata.

I feel a bit lost.

I could potentially hand-roll my own third party driver based on the indi-rolloffino driver, but it seems like a lot of hard work. That's why I'm thinking of moving away from INDI-duino to Cloudwatcher etc. And obviously there is a cost involved.

Kind regards

Steve.

Read More...

So my mistake, when you do ls/dev/, I still get the old Arduino port names, which I hadn't expected, however, the new names were there. With both ports plugged in the Rolloff roof connects and the driver works as before, the weather station does not.

I have not been able to get any of the arduino-based weather stations to work at all, even without the roof.

I might have to buy the Lunatico AAG CloudWatcher Cloud Detector. What do people think? Acxtually, I think it's probably better for rain, which I think the Arduino doesn't do well and wind.

Kind regards

Steve.

Read More...

Hi Tom,

So there was no such file. I created it using sudo -s and here is what I put in it:

# Arduino Uno Rolloffino Roof controller roofCtrl. Shown as Arduino SA - Arduino Uno.
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2341", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0043", MODE="0666", SYMLINK+="roofCtrl"

# Arduino Nano weather/met station controller.  - Shown as QinHeng Electronics CH340 serial converter
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1a86", ATTRS{idProduct}=="7523", MODE="0666", SYMLINK+="metCtrl"

99-observatory.rules

So the big item is that ArduinoJson v7 gives a lot of errors. When I drop back to v6 it's much better. The OLED 1306 also gives a string overflow, so it's best to leave that out. Maybe a prior version works, but I don't have the time now to test them all.

Read More...

Thanks Tom, that's just what need.

When I said compile I meant on the Arduino, sorry I wasn't clear. Rolloff.ino is fine, weather radio is not.

The weather radio driver also seems to be fine, just not the .ino file.

Tx

Steve.

Read More...