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Home Weather Station
Blog Postcircuito teamOctober 31, 2017

Hey there! we’re here with a new circuit idea for you! This time we’re going to show you how to create a home weather station. This can be a great educational project for you to make with your kids or students. In this project, they can really get a sense of what sensors are and how they collect data from the environment.

Once you start collecting data you can transfer it automatically to websites that collect information from home weather stations. This helps create more accurate weather estimates and help other people, which is always nice.

So let’s get Making!

There are over 12000 public weather stations across the US and almost 200,000 people who operate their own weather-tracking systems on their own property! Photo by Jonathan Mast on Unsplash

Electronic Components

click this link or the image below to see all the components you’ll need for the project:

Main components

  • NodeMCU - The “heart” of the home weather station, has an onboard WiFi module - the ESP8266 so you can control and collect data from the home weather station using your wireless internet connection.
  • DHT22 - measures temperature and humidity. It’s a low-cost device that uses a single wire digital interface to measure and return values. It consists of a capacitive humidity sensor and a thermistor to measure the surrounding air.
  • U1881 Hall sensor - when alternating magnetic poles are kept near the sensor, you will observe that the output pin starts toggling. The toggling will provide digital values ranging from 1 to 0. In this project, we’ll use it to measure wind speed.
  • LDR mini photocell - a tiny light sensor that measures the amount of light by responding to changes in ambient lighting. The values are returned within the 0 to 1023 range. Here, 0 refers to no light and 1023 refers to maximum light. The sensor works in daylight and ambient light conditions.
  • Water level sensor module - a simple water droplet identification system which we’ll use to measure rain. It has a series of wires placed in parallel. These wires trace water droplets in the air and provide an analog signal. The module runs on very little power but is highly sensitive.
  • LCD 16x2 I2C - an LCD screen that serves as the display unit for the home weather station. It can display anything from basic drawings to short messages.

Secondary Components

When you visit the link to the circuit diagram here, you will find that there are a few secondary components that are listed in the bottom right section of the page.

General secondary components

  • Breadboard - The breadboard is a component that’s used for prototyping. The idea is to first test out your circuit before you go ahead and build the actual unit. The breadboard allows you to electrically connect the different components using the jumper wires.
  • Jumper Wires are used for connecting components to the breadboard.
  • USB Cable is used to connect the microcontroller to the computer, for uploading code.

Specific Secondary components

  • 10K Ohm Resistor - an electrical component with two passive terminals. It is included to create electrical resistance within the circuit. Ohm resistors regulate signal or current flow, divide the voltage, and close transmission lines etc.
  • Voltage Regulator 5v - The voltage regulator helps with steadying the voltage that is fed to the circuit.
  • Electrolytic Capacitor - 1uF/25V - comes with two passive terminals like the Ohm resistor. The capacitor’s main function, with regard to electronic circuits, is to block direct current and allow alternate current. However, with other circuits, the main functions can vary.
  • Capacitor Ceramic 100nF - the Ceramic Capacitor’s main functions are similar to that of the Electrolytic Capacitor.
  • HeatSink TO-220 - this small metal unit dissipates heat when connected to heat-generating components. Allows for circuits to cool down.

‘Secondary components’ is a general name for all the components that you need to add to your circuit in order to make it work. They are mainly electronic parts such as resistors, capacitors, transistors etc, which are present in order to adjust current flow and voltage levels.

We divide these components into:

  • General secondary components, which are the non-electronic components you can find in almost every circuit. Such as breadboards, jumper wires, etc.
  • Specific secondary components - these are components that we add to the circuit according to the specific components we want to use. For example resistors, voltage regulators, capacitors, etc.

You can find information about the secondary components you need for each core component in datasheets and example circuits, and you can also calculate some of their values on your own. When using circuito.io circuit generator, the values of the secondary components are calculated for you automatically.

Circuit Diagram

Click this link or the image below to see the circuit diagram.

For a step by step wiring guide, click on the “view project guide” button.

Test Code

After you’ve put together the circuit, you can test its components by uploading a test code, which can be accessed by clicking the image below or this link. Once you get to the link, just follow the instructions and download the code.

Get Creative!

This sums up the home weather station circuit. Now it’s time to get creative! There are plenty of other components you can add to this project, this is just to get you started.

Let us know if you have anything to add to this project, in the comments below. You are more than welcome to ask questions, give us feedback and share images or videos of your creation. Also, if you write code for this project and would like to share it with our community, please add a link in the comments below.