1

I want to put a weather station at a very remote airport whichhas no electricity or communications.

The overall concept is this:

  • Solar panels
  • Large deep cycle battery
  • Raspberry Pi weather station
  • IOT cellular connection (to send data back to public web server)
  • Local display for quick view.

I wonder if anyone has gone on such an adventure and if so, what kind of power I should expect to use.

Ideally the instrumentation that I would have in place is:

  • Thermometer
  • Barmoeter
  • Anemometer
  • Celiometer

The information only needs to be updated every 30 minutes or so. So I figure a small compressed packet to a public server for consumption.

So how do I plan out power?

Improve this question
9
  • 1
    Hate to do this as it sounds a fascinating project but this is not actually a Pi issue - its a power issue and sits batter on the electronics exchange than here. As such I am voting for a close. As for advice - junk the Pi 4 (too power hungry - look at a zero or Arduino / ESP chip) and also check the early issues of MagPi (way back starting at issue 18 ) they have a series of articles on a remote weather station issue 8 has solar power magpi.raspberrypi.org/issues Google shows blog.voltaicsystems.com/…
    – user115418
    Commented Dec 13, 2020 at 13:06
  • I’m voting to close this question because its more power than Pi.
    – user115418
    Commented Dec 13, 2020 at 13:07
  • 1
    @Andyroo: Like you, I initially felt this was off-topic. I voted to close, but retracted that vote when I realized two things: 1) we have a tag for power, 2) there are 808 questions in it. That said, the scope of the question may be too large - IMHO, it would certainly benefit from more focus. (Hint to the OP :)
    – Seamus
    Commented Dec 13, 2020 at 18:10
  • Welcome! Your question is interesting. I've been considering this project also. However, to improve your chances of getting useful answers, I feel your question would be much-improved if you did a little independent research first. Armed with the knowledge you gain, you could then formulate a more specific question. You could start with a search on raspberry pi off grid solar power. Or simply raspberry pi power usage
    – Seamus
    Commented Dec 13, 2020 at 18:30
  • 1
    @Andyroo I agree w/ Seamus here re topicality; generic electronics questions are a grey area, but sensibly enough we have always dealt with questions about power supply: The theory and math are trivial, and there are significant anecdotal/experiential observations to be made about the Pi in that context (eg., don't use a power bank meant for recharging mobile devices because...)
    – goldilocks ♦
    Commented Dec 13, 2020 at 19:29

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Power specs for your Pi are around:

  • Minimum recommended power supply current: 3.0 A.
  • Maximum total absorption of USB peripherals: 1.2 A.
  • Average current consumption: 600 mA.

Your cellular connector, your display and sensors will consume even more, which you need to add to your power requirements.

It depends quite a bit on where you are (close to the equator or close to the north/south pole) to determine how much battery you need to survive darke times (if you get really close to a pole, that may be up to 6 months!), and the general weather conditions there. As you are in a fixed location, you can probably use heavy batteries and quite a lot of them. You might consider offering a general power distribution for the complete location.

Improve this answer
0

I'm sorry to say but the Rpi isn't a good solution for this. The power consumption is too high. But... I take for granted that's what you have and going with microcontrollers isn't an option.

You will absolutely need a ADC integrated to monitor your battery voltage. To a certain degree, running on battery has several advantages.

I am pretty sure I have seen a few articles about weather stations but I am indeed having some trouble in finding them so I'll just link this one.

You will need to be extremely careful in shutting down properly or use a read-only filesystem.

Overall, I suspect learning some Arduino magic will take you just as much effort. Just in case, the cellular radios you will need to upload to cloud include their own processor and in some cases you can talk to them = send to your cloud by just sending on the serial. Or by SPI.

I would suggest against having a display but if you want to go ahead at least try to get some e-ink.

I made a couple projects on battery. I would suggest to split your problem in at least two:

  1. doing the whole thing on the pi, with the plug

  2. doing the above with the battery

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.