3D Printed Mini Weather Station for Your Desk

Hey there in this Instructables i will show you how to make 3D printed mini weather station at your home that will show most important information like the time, date and temperature status along with a space to show your favourite quotes.

If you are a tech lover then this little piece of gadget is for you, we are using 3d printing parts and some electronics to make this and if you willing to try to make this all the necessary info has been given so anybody with little knowledge in electronics can build with ease.

This is a desktop gadget and helps you save time in getting essential information like the temperature outise even you can add multiple time zones so that you can have all the updates with a single view on your desk.

When i say mini weather station it is indeed not a mini when we talk about its features, Powered by USB this acts as a plug and play device that instantly shows all the information on a small display screen.

Uses wifi technology that is built on board on an wemos board to fetch the latest updates of weather and everything is real time.

There is no certain rule that this weather station should show only certain details, the option to customise this device is limitless you can also add real time news headlines showing status also.

Well we can talk more about this going forward, now let us build this cool project, don't forget to check the working video given at end of this instructable.

Glad that you are showing interest, continue reading for more cool stuffs

These are the materials that you will need to build this weather station

Wemos D1 Mini

ST7735 TFT Display

Usb cable

PLA filament(black and white color)

3D Printer

Jumper cables

Breadboard

Super glue

Double sided adhesive or hot glue

Arduino IDE

Ultimaker Cura slicer

Wire striping tool

Soldering iron and lead (optional)

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The design for this weather station was very simple since the base and top frame was designed considering the standard size of the components.

Both of the parts that i call it here as the top and the base frame were designed using tinkercad application and later exported to cura slicer.

The files were then exported to a 3d printer, i will be using black and white PLA filament to print the parts and the overall print time for me was less than 50 minutes considering both the parts.

No need of using rafts or supports at the time of printing since there is no overhang in the model, make sure you are using the exact same placement of the model like i did to get the best results.

Now after printing if you need to clean any basic things you can do it but it is not necessary.

This will complete the frame part for the weather station, if you don't have a 3d printer you can recreate the same model using the dimensions used for this design on a piece of cardboard and use glue to reinforce the frame and later use it.

To begin with i will by uploading the code to wemos board, the process is very simple

connect board to computer using USB cable, open arduino ide and paste the below code.

If you are using arduini ide for first time you may need to install few libraries, do it and simply select proper type of board and com port and click on the upload button and later we can head over to building the circuit like given below

ST7735 TFT display connections with Wemos D1 Mini

VCC to 3.3V and GND with GND

CS from display to D8 on wemos board

RST to D4

DC to D2

SDA (MOSI) is connect to D7 pin

SCK (Clock) to D5

This completes the connection and now we can test to see if everything is correct or not

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Like i said earlier somewhere above i wanted this to be a plug and play device lets say you connect this device to power source on your laptop then also this device should work.

With this factor keeping in mind i will be using a USB cable that was cut into half and the other piece was connected to the power input pins on the breadboard.

You can also solder this to the board directly, i just trimmed the power line (jumper cable) and added this wire and insulated the ends with hot glue.

Now you can insert all the electronics inside the base part and use hot glue or double sided adhesive if necessary to keep all the components in place.

As you can see in the last images of this step the box will hold the components very well even though the breadboard is made to fit in the base.

Finally you can finish the project by adding top case to the base, for this purpose you might need to use only super glue and avoid using any other source of coupling.

Well well well now we have the smart weather station ready, I cant wait to test this project out and i know even you are very much excited to test this out.

Now in the next step we will see how to use this project.

There is no rocket scienec involved to use this project, all you have to do is plug this station to any USB powered source in my case i will ve using a power bank.

The wifi needs to be on so that this weather station will receive real time updates from the server.

After you connect this device to USB power source then the screen become blank and it will search for wifi network and once it is done connecting to wifi you can see the same status as wifi connected on the screen.

Allow a few seconds and now you should be able to see the weather status on the display, i have added time and minute along with running seconds.

In addition to that date, day and month along with temperature.

I live in different time zone and when you are using this project it will automatically show the time as per your zone.

I also left a slot to add another feature, you can add humidity level or any other feature such as motivational quotes if you are willing to in that blank space.

This is all about this project, if you still have any questions feel free to leave it on the comment section and also if you made this project i will be happy to see that on the "i made it" section.

Thanks and have a great day.

Here is the working video of this project, as you can see how clearly it is showing all the weather components.

I have also left room for more customisations and you can see that on the screen, For example you can add the icons or small active icons that will make the project look much more appealing.

The type of screen that i used served the purpose very well and i recommend to use the same screen in your project to get the desired results and also you are free to customise this project.

That is all about this project, If you still have any questions ask me in the comment and i will be happy to address all of it.