Weather Station#

Brief: to produce a weather station with at least two of the following measurements:

Wind speed, wind direction, temperature.

All inputs will be converted to voltages, using a 360 degree potentiometer for wind direction, a dc generator for wind speed, and LM35 type temperature sensors. The information must be displayed in separate fields on the 16 by 2 LCD.

More information to get you started on this project is provided here: Weather Station Demonstration.

Marks will be awarded as follows:

  • 0 to 40%: For a non-functional unit which has some information on the LCD.

  • 40 to 50%: For display of at least one of the measurements specified.

  • 50 to 60% For display of at least two of the measurements specified and suitably formatted.

  • 60 to 70%: For display of all three measurements.

  • 70% plus: For additional functionality such as max and min values, extra displays such as a ring of eight LEDs to show wind direction using cardinal points.

Weather Station Demonstration#

Watch Dr. Davies explaining how to approach the Weather Station mini-project.

The video lasts 17 minutes.

Here is a sketch of the op-amp circuit.

opamp circuit for temperature sensor

And here are details of the LM324 op-amp and LM35 temperature sensor.

details of the LM324 op-amp and LM35 temperature sensor

Here are some photos of the advanced demonstration programme running.

Prototype weather station showing wind speed and wind direction

Note that the wind direction has been scaled to give a number 0 to 359 instead of 0 to 1023.

In this photo, the “raw” temperature data has been scaled to give degrees Celsius.

Prototype weather station temperature measurement

Here is a listing of the basic programme, which presents the “raw” data 0 to 1023.