Good morning:

I'm thinking of sensors to build a weather station.

- Wind Speed ​​Sensor
- Rain Sensor
- Solar radiation sensor
- Soil moisture sensor

Greetings!

The Phidgets light sensor is too sensitive for quantifying solar radiation and would need filters to reduce the light intensity to <1000 lux. The old Phidgets light sensor was insensitive enough, or you could salvage one of the photocells from a night light that turns itself off in the daytime. Alternatively, one could use a solar cell and measure the current through a load resistor which would be proportional to sunlight intensity.

One source of soil moisture sensors I'm testing are made by Vegetronix (http://vegetronix.com/) and they run off 5 V and produce a voltage in the range of 0-3 V which can be converted to soil moisture percentage by a piecewise linear approximation. They can also be used as fluid level sensors. I used a Phidgets A/D connector to easily connect it up to an 8/8/8 board. I've tested the VH400 soil moisture probe only.

As far as a rain gauge goes, I suppose you could use the Vegetronix 400 in the fluid level measuring mode and have some sort of mechanical actuator dump the contents of the rain gauge when it gets full.

Haven't decided how to best do the wind speed sensor yet as I'm still looking for a simple means of quantifying wind direction. Putting a propeller on an electric motor will give a voltage proportional to the rotation rate and the system can be calibrated by mounting it on the outside of a vehicle and driving at various speeds.

The IR sensor can be used as a cloud sensor as the back-radiation one gets from a cloud is considerably warmer than from clear sky. There hasn't been enough completely dry weather lately where I live for me to risk trying this as I don't think the IR sensor would like rain very much. The IR sensor has an on-board temperature sensor which has a relative accuracy of better than 0.1 C.

Dear borisg:

Thank you very much for the information, primarily by the probe VH400 Series.

The radiation sensor I have solved it with a solar cell and a resistor.

The wind speed sensor at first I built and caliber, so does the rain gauge.

Now, for the wind speed sensor and rain sensor I have no luck in getting the equivalent type. That is, that run on 5 V and produce a voltage in the range 0-3 V.

I even tried to get digital to allow me to use the D input of a Phidgets 8/8/8, but no luck.

Do you know where to get them somewhere?

Thank you!

My recommendation for a windspeed sensor is to build your own anemometer. You can use an encoder on the shaft of the anemometer to determine the speed at which it is rotating. This will allow you to calculate windspeed.

_________________
Brian Burley
403-282-7335 ext. 6003
support@phidgets.com

Dear borisg:
You told me: "... One source of soil moisture sensors are made ​​by testing'm Vegetronix(http://vegetronix.com/) and they run off 5 V and produces a voltage in therange of 0-3 V can be converted to Which soil moisture by a piecewiselinear Percentage Approximation. They can Also be Used as fluid levelsensors. I used to Phidgets a / D connector to connect it up to Easily an8/8/8 board. I've tested the soil moisture probe VH400 only ... "

I would like to ask you this: Did you connect directly to the sensor or is there some intermediate stepin order to communicate the sensor with Phidgets board?

As I can convert sensor input to a reading in Volts, and then make calculations? (getSensorValue(int index)
* 0,005), is correct for NonPhidgets Sensor?

Any tip to help before starting to test this sensor?

Thanks.

I share the solution I developed and worked perfectly for my purpose:
My starting point was: How to get a sensor reading consistent with Phidgets? My sensor supports input from 3.3V up to 20 v and returns an output between 0V and 3V.

My solution:
(getIk (). getSensorValue (Puerto_Entrada_Analoga_Humedad_Suelo) * 5.0) / 1000.0

This gave me back the voltage sensor.

I can not say it is the best or the most optimized, but it worked for my needs.

Until next time.