Weather Station that lasts months!

RE: Weather Station that lasts months!

mudz — Tue, 22 Oct 2019 18:45:41 GMT

Project idea is good. Many are already using this kind of weather station at remote locations.

Loved the use of D1 mini and BME280 sensor module.

Lot's of information missing and too many ifs and buts for the project, some are already pointed out in comments.

Moreover, those samsung's battery need special charges as mentioned on their site and are dangerous if not used properly. But, It seems you are not using these battery and that charger.

How are you powering this weather system now, as it seems it is still connected to cloud and working properly.

I would have loved this, if you have used little solar panels instead of using those large solar panels.

Keep it up [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-647ae721-a49d-4a1a-99ae-c1efa35d40ed/6082.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

-Mudz

RE: Weather Station that lasts months!

aabhas — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 15:33:10 GMT

A very nice project [mention:f5b888a3f4e840439117125bfd809ea0:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]

Do update us in community that how long does it last , would be helpful for other projects requiring power optimisation.

Thanks

Aabhas Senapati

RE: Weather Station that lasts months!

neilk — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 11:39:59 GMT

Hi @[mention:f5b888a3f4e840439117125bfd809ea0:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] A nice project. I like the idea of trying to keep the battery charged via a Solar Panel - it's on my to do list! It will be interesting to see how long it can last [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-647ae721-a49d-4a1a-99ae-c1efa35d40ed/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

If you look further down the article from randomnerdtutotials.com, you will see the comment in relation to Deep Sleep :

This is the most power efficient option and the ESP chip only draws approximately 20uA. However, if you use a full-feature development board with built-in programmer, LEDs, and so on, you won’t be able to achieve such a low power state

My own investigations: https://www.element14.com/community/people/neilk/blog/2019/02/14/investigating-the-power-consumption-of-a-wemos-d1-mini-esp8266 suggest that the Wemos D1 mini board consumes over 200 uA when in Deep Sleep. In your case, the BME680 will probably consume some power as well.

When the system is awake, much more power will be consumed, especially during startup and when communicating via WiFi.

My system runs for 17 days, taking readings at 1 minute intervals; I assume that if I increased the time interval to 10 minutes, it might last 170 days?? I haven't done that yet. As @[mention:d25512d61e65470296ce2f82f47741ab:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] says, battery chemistry may not be up to long time periods.

Thanks for sharing this

Neil

RE: Weather Station that lasts months!

dubbie — Sun, 13 Oct 2019 08:14:49 GMT

A good solution. It will be interesting to see how long it actually lasts. Sometimes the battery chemistry just isn't up to long time periods.

Dubbie

RE: Weather Station that lasts months!

DAB — Sat, 12 Oct 2019 18:51:41 GMT

My store bought weather station used solar cells to trickle charge the batteries, which reduced the size of the batteries and kept the system small.

So far I have not had to change the batteries after nearly 18 months.

DAB

RE: Weather Station that lasts months!

clem57 — Sat, 12 Oct 2019 17:23:59 GMT

Interesting ideas here, but I cannot see any "energy harvesting" in this project!