Trim, Co. Meath weather station

PauloMN

Having got the weather bug from reading this forum over the past while, I ordered a weather station which I finally got today (nothing beats a late Christmas present on a dreary January day), and I've put it online here:
Trim weather

Based on what I've read on here, I installed Cumulus - neat little piece of software and very easy to get going. All seems to be working fine so far, although the sensors are in a temporary location until I can get out in daylight and put them in their permanent spot. I intend running it online 24/7.

Hope some of you find it useful - I know I'll enjoy using it! The rain sensor is getting a good workout tonight anyway.

Cheers,
Paul.

Juppie

That is brilliant. Thanks a million. I will definitely be keeping an eye on it and have just saved it to my favourites:)

vonbarracuda

Thanks Paul, The website part is it handy to set up ? Do you have to do anything tech or does the software take care of it?:eek:

Matt Simis

By the same token I have one setup in Athboy just down the road from you, also using Cumulus:
Athboy/Kildalkey Weather

Note: as Im posting I took the laptop way it was running off for a couple of hours, will consider something more permanent.

PauloMN

vonbarracuda wrote: »

Thanks Paul, The website part is it handy to set up ? Do you have to do anything tech or does the software take care of it?:eek:

Software pretty much takes care of everything, you need a website space with FTP access - once you have those details, you set a few parameters in the software and away you go.

If you need a hand with that, I'd be happy to help with what I can.

PauloMN

Matt Simis wrote: »

By the same token I have one setup in Athboy just down the road from you, also using Cumulus:
Athboy/Kildalkey Weather

Note: as Im posting I took the laptop way it was running off for a couple of hours, will consider something more permanent.

Excellent, nice to have another station close by! I see you had yours in time for the cold spells, -12C on Christmas day - that's certainly what it felt like here!

irishmotorist

I'll hopefully be uploading from Lucan with my info at the weekend. I've got no pole yet so the weather station is still on a chair in my front room. The rain gauge and anemometer aren't getting too much of a workout yet so!

irishmotorist

BTW, I got a tweet from Irish Weather Online the other day saying that they could link to your weather station site from IWO if you liked - just drop them an e-mail.

vonbarracuda

Irish weather online also said they will have an android app out soon!!

Cleavage1970

Thanks Paul and Matt, I have added the links to favourites

irishmotorist

Paulo, just wondering how you got the pretty colours on your Cumulus webpage output? Did you edit the source files on your PC? I was playing with mine last night and the uploaded pages are just plain white.

On another note, have you tried the Cumulus Realtime? I think it looks AWWWWESSOOOMMMEEE! (IMO, of course). I got that going after the plain web page and the dials etc. look great. I'm not ready to publish the page just yet, but I can stick up a screenshot if you'd like a look at it.

PauloMN

irishmotorist wrote: »

Paulo, just wondering how you got the pretty colours on your Cumulus webpage output? Did you edit the source files on your PC? I was playing with mine last night and the uploaded pages are just plain white.

On another note, have you tried the Cumulus Realtime? I think it looks AWWWWESSOOOMMMEEE! (IMO, of course). I got that going after the plain web page and the dials etc. look great. I'm not ready to publish the page just yet, but I can stick up a screenshot if you'd like a look at it.

Didn't need to do anything to get the colours, I would imagine they are all defined in the CSS file, did you upload that to your web space? Make sure you upload that and the graphics also.

Haven't tried the realtime yet, must try it.

Have the station in its permanent location now, aligned it more accurately than it had been. It spun about 90 degrees in the wind yesterday as can be seen on the graphs! Bit more secure now, and up a little higher so should be more accurate for the wind speed/direction.

Fiskar

One of you have the wrong sunrise and sun set times. Trim appears to me to be correct based on observations.
Nice to have "local " weather stations!

PauloMN

I'm pretty sure the sunrise and sunset times are calculated based on latitude and longitude - if they are not entered, they default to zero, so those sunrise and sunset times will be for somewhere in the Atlantic off Africa.

vonbarracuda

Paulo does your weather site have a twitter feed ill give ye a follow? :cool:

Matt Simis

PauloMN wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the sunrise and sunset times are calculated based on latitude and longitude - if they are not entered, they default to zero, so those sunrise and sunset times will be for somewhere in the Atlantic off Africa.

Ive set it up so many times over the last 1.5years for various reasons I dont set every optional detail, so I assume mine is on defaults. Doesnt actually matter does it?

I originally set this up to track Wind speed over a year period to evaluate the idea of installing a Wind Turbine, the fact it measures temps and such is a bonus!

PauloMN

vonbarracuda wrote: »

Paulo does your weather site have a twitter feed ill give ye a follow? :cool:

'Fraid not, no idea either how to set one up.

irishmotorist

In Cumulus there's a twitter username and password field under Internet Settings. I've been toying with the idea but I'm afraid of becoming a spammer! Maybe I'll turn it on for a while tonight and see what happens.

PauloMN

I need to build a shield for the temp sensor. Went out for a run at lunchtime and checked the temperature, was showing over 9C :cool: - decided a hoody would do me. It was fecking freezing :eek: when I went out so I'm certain the reading was incorrect by between 4 and 5 degrees. The sunshine at the time was very strong, so I reckon the sensor housing was heating up.

I think some sort of sunshade should sort it out. Temp has dropped right back to 3.6C now that sun is not so strong on the sensor.

vonbarracuda

Could you not just get the follow us on twitter button on your website and then you update twitter as you please?

irishmotorist

PauloMN wrote: »

I need to build a shield for the temp sensor.

Snap! :pac: Mine peaked at 14.5 C at lunchtime and dropped to 6 C in about 90 mins.
I'm considering putting it lower than the top of the wall as the sun will mostly be on the one side if it, but I'll have to check some shield guides later.

Iancar29

Ye folks, i had the same problem with mine at first , hav in underneath the gutter out the back no , which in the shade for most of the day .

Matt Simis

Mine peaked at 7.8c and is in direct sunlight with just the built in shade:
http://weather.netcessible.com/today.htm

I guess 7.8c is likely a degree or maybe 2 too hot (what was the true temp?), but mine is high up on that pole I mentioned, not too pushed about pulling it down.

highdef

Snap to all of you. Do you all have the Maplin weather station? It was on special for 100 quid a few months ago, when I snapped it up. And I too have the problem with the sun shield.....it's crap!

PauloMN

Well mine is not the Maplin one, but is exactly the same unit with a different name. I believe the same unit is sold rebadged under many different names. Mine is the same as this one.

As for sheilding the sensor, I'm going to try moving it first as Iancar29 has done - I reckon I can relatively easily move it to a more shady spot. Now I understand why the cables from the wind and rain sensors to the thermometer/barometer unit are so long.

vonbarracuda

Maplins have this one in town for 200euro I think
http://www.maplin.co.uk/usb-wireless-weather-forecaster-223254

Its rebranded in there box as far as I know , but anyone know what make it is? :eek:

irishmotorist

Regarding the Twitter functionality, I gave it a go last night. You can set the number of minutes between tweets, so I set it to 60 for starters. Every hour it gives these details:

Wind 0.0 km/h ---. Barometer 1036.8 mb, Rising slowly. Temperature -4.3 °C. Rain today 0.0 mm. Humidity 97%

I don't think it's particularly useful for general Twitter followers, so I might give it a miss myself.

Matt Simis

highdef wrote: »

Snap to all of you. Do you all have the Maplin weather station? It was on special for 100 quid a few months ago, when I snapped it up. And I too have the problem with the sun shield.....it's crap!

Yep I do. I rigged mine to run off a DC Power supply as the Transmitter and measuring components were eating batteries and as mentioned Id have to pull down the pole I have it own to change them.. like every 7weeks.

m0nsterie

irishmotorist wrote: »

Regarding the Twitter functionality, I gave it a go last night. You can set the number of minutes between tweets, so I set it to 60 for starters. Every hour it gives these details:

Wind 0.0 km/h ---. Barometer 1036.8 mb, Rising slowly. Temperature -4.3 °C. Rain today 0.0 mm. Humidity 97%

I don't think it's particularly useful for general Twitter followers, so I might give it a miss myself.

Well you can put in whatever info you like via the webtags, see here
http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/Webtags

e.g. here's one of mine (from around Christmas time)
1.2°C.Trend:-0.2°C/h.Calm,N.Pressure:Falling slowly.Rain:0.3mm Forecast:Unsettled, precipitation later.Sunrise08:39 Sunset16:08

which isn't too bad, good enough for me. Don't forget you're limited to 140 chars, but you could easily set up a batch to change the file with the webtags around so each tweet gives different info.

Also you could set up with a separate Twitter account so you wouldn't have your usual list of followers.

The webpages are fine for looking at yourself but to be honest the WH1080 isn't good enough to always give an accurate reading, so viewers of the webpages should probably be made aware of that.

vonbarracuda : that's the fine offset model (probably a WH1080). It is not worth 200 euro, it usually goes for less that half that in the Maplin sales.

vonbarracuda

m0nsterie wrote: »

Well you can put in whatever info you like via the webtags, see here
http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/Webtags

e.g. here's one of mine (from around Christmas time)
1.2°C.Trend:-0.2°C/h.Calm,N.Pressure:Falling slowly.Rain:0.3mm Forecast:Unsettled, precipitation later.Sunrise08:39 Sunset16:08

which isn't too bad, good enough for me. Don't forget you're limited to 140 chars, but you could easily set up a batch to change the file with the webtags around so each tweet gives different info.

Also you could set up with a separate Twitter account so you wouldn't have your usual list of followers.

The webpages are fine for looking at yourself but to be honest the WH1080 isn't good enough to always give an accurate reading, so viewers of the webpages should probably be made aware of that.

vonbarracuda : that's the fine offset model (probably a WH1080). It is not worth 200 euro, it usually goes for less that half that in the Maplin sales.

Thanks for that I thought 200quid was a bit much!!

m0nsterie

Matt Simis wrote: »

Yep I do. I rigged mine to run off a DC Power supply as the Transmitter and measuring components were eating batteries and as mentioned Id have to pull down the pole I have it own to change them.. like every 7weeks.

Really? Mine has been up for over a year now without a single change of batteries.