The Weather Clock Is Finished
Sun, 01/10/2010 - 15:25 — Sean CarneyOver the past few days I have completed the weather clock and put the finishing touches on it. Earlier I had finished the assembly of the clock, but it still lacked some functionality.
The problem with a project like this is unless I mount some buttons on the back of the clock, there is no way to change the settings of the clock without recompiling the code. Since the clock already has a network connection it made sense to put a website on the device where you can both check the weather and change the settings.
Currently the two settings that can be changed online are the hours that the clock will update between (so I don't hear the motors working late at night) and whether the temperature hand shows the ambient temperature or a windchill adjusted temperature.
You can visit the weather clock online and view its website, but you won't be able to change any settings.
Below is a video showing the clock updating itself and a demonstration of the clocks website.
In order to make it easier for other people to create projects like this one, I have placed all the code for the clock online. The code can be found at weather clock code. All the non-standard libraries are included and I will update the code if further changes are made.
- 615 reads
Comments
Cool! Might just provide some
Cool! Might just provide some inspiration for my tweeting furnace project. I have a couple bits left on the stamp for input and I'm working on driving some servo's in parallel with the LCD display I have.
[...] build this clock that
[...] build this clock that tells the weather instead of the time. The two hands display the current conditions and the temperature. Forty below [...]
Great project! Cheers from
Great project! Cheers from Ottawa, ao.
Do you have schematics for
Do you have schematics for this project?
No, but the circuit is
No, but the circuit is trivial to make.
1) The Ethershield needs no additional wiring to work with the Arduino - just plug it in and your done.
2) The two servos are connected to digital pins 5 & 6 along with +5V (or Vin if it is 5V) and ground on the Arduino. If you look at this picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35936101@N05/4260218515/ you can see digital pins 5 & 6 connected to the male header with black wire on the left, another wire connecting to Vin on the right, and the ground was printed on the prototyping board I used.
You might find that the motors draw too much power when moving and cause the Arduino or Ethershield to restart. If this is the case, solder a large-ish capacitor across +5V and ground to level out the noise caused by the motors.
I too would love some
I too would love some schematics for this project. I'm a web developer but I'm new to the Arduino and have very little experience with electronics.
An awesome, awesome
An awesome, awesome project!
I'm doing something similar and was wondering if you could share the source of canada-manitoba-winnipeg.php?
I've been trying a ton of different weather classes for php, but none of them seem to work just right, so I'd be very much interested in seeing the source for that PHP part of the project. :-)
I wasn't able to find an
I wasn't able to find an adequate weather library for php myself, so I ended up taking a different route. What I did was create a script that downloads the Environment Canada weather forecast for Winnipeg and then parses it to get all the relevant information.
This is a fairly simple technique, and although it will need to be changed for non-Canadian locations, the changes shouldn't be too difficult to perform.
The source of canada-manitoba-winnipeg.php can be found at http://www.seancarney.ca/weather-clock/code/canada-manitoba-winnipeg.txt
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