Online Weather Station

You will not believe it! But from the beginning. I was working on the next version of CoolPhone and the number of errors I made when designed it forced me to take a break from it. I put my shoes on and went outside. It turned out to be cold so I went back for a hoodie. "A walk in the fresh air will do me good" - I thought, not knowing what awaited me. After four minutes and twenty-five seconds of relaxing in the nature views, I saw little black dots in the distance. "I will come closer," I said to myself and walked closer. It turned out that three esp modules also took a walk. It was such a strange situation that I only needed to find a PCB for another project in my left pocket.

Or maybe it wasn't like that, it's just the weather that affects me like that. Anyway, I have ESP and PCBs modules and I am not hesitant to use them to make a weather station.

I started with creating a prototype on a breadboard. I made an adapter from the ESP module to the breadboard so that its legs would not close together, but a moment later I got myself a module for programming ESP01. I connected the programmer and ESP to the breadboard and connected them to make sure that the module communicated with the network. Then I added the BME280 sensor to the previous schematic and made sure it was working properly. Later, I uploaded the code supporting the BLYNK program to the ESP module and checked how it works.

Recently, I have been dividing work on projects into several stages, creating a loading module, checking if it works. Connecting the temperature sensor, checking if it works. This way I can easily eliminate possible mistakes. If I created the entire prototype on a prototype board and then looked for a bug, it would be hard.

Then, using previously created programs, I created one final one, which I uploaded to the ESP module. The prototype works as it should, it's time to create a PCB.

I created a schematic in Eagle based on the previously made prototype and then designed the PCB. I saved them as Gerber files and ordered them - I went to PCBWay and clicked "Quote Now" and then "Quick Order PCB" and "Online Gerber Viewer", where I uploaded files for my board, so I could see what it would look like. I went back to the previous tab and clicked "Upload Gerber File", I chose my file and all parameters were loading themselves, I changed only the soldermask colour to blue and black. Then I clicked "Save To Card", provided shipping details and paid for the order. After two days the tile was sent, and after another two days, it was already on my desk.

I was missing a few elements, so I desoldered them from the charging module. I applied solder paste and electronic components on it and soldered them with the hot-air station. After connecting the power, the blue LED should be on and the red light should be flashing, which means that the battery should be connected. As you can see, it works as it should. Later I soldered the goldpins and when I wanted to solder the BME280 module, it turned out that its dimensions did not match the footprint, but fortunately, I could trim it, because I will not use its two pins. I put some flux on and finished soldering.

I will be using the BLYNK application to view the measurements from the sensor. I configured it for my needs, combined it with ESP and that's it.

Now was time for the housing, which I designed in Fusion 360. It consists of two parts - the battery and PCB container and the cover, which must be attached with screws. I threw the file into Creality Slicer and started printing. These two elements took about two hours to print. Then I put the battery and PCB inside, put the jumper on and closed the case.

My weather station is ready.

Of course, I will not leave this project at this stage. The battery lasts about 6 hours of continuous use, which is the far too little result. This is because the module is constantly sending data which is unnecessary. I plan to solve this in such a way that the ESP will be in deep sleep for 15 mins, then it will take a reading of the weather conditions, send data to the main module, and go to deep sleep mode again, over and over again. This will significantly extend the operating time of the weather station. This project is only the second part of my original smart home project, it is worth waiting for the final effect.

Ok, that's it for today, tell me what do you think about this device in the comment and check out my previous post!

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