Thought I would share the little display I’ve been working on. The idea was to make a sub $10 display that could be put anywhere. One by the bed, one in the kitchen, one by the back door, one in the workshop, one at work – you can never have too much weather info! The primary goal was to display temperature and RH. Something that was always on and I could just glance at. No need to get my phone/tablet out.
Its uses a wifi microcontroller (Wemos Lilon ESP8266) and a cheap display (Nokia 5110 clone). There is a micropython script running which updates the display every minute with data from the web.
I’ve also connected an SHT31 temperature/RH sensor for indoor values. The display while cheap is very limited (84x48 pixels). The idea is to mount in a box with touch buttons to switch to additional data (pressure, wind direction, speed, rainfall, radiation, UV) and to turn on the backlight. Currently, USB powered but I hope I can run it from a battery. Although that might be beyond my programming and electronics skills.
Those 5110 displays are pretty great even after all these years.
Love the case. Where’d you find that ? Do you have any photos of the setup inside the case for how it’s all mounted up ?
I’m doing the identical thing here. I’m using a nodeMCU with a ds18b20 sensor that publishes to MQTT locally with the data grabbed by a pi for display. The 0.96" OLED display is pretty nice, but retina-burning bright. Eventually I guess I should switch to a far smaller form factor like yours. I’ve also tried DHT11 and DHT21 but they’re not too accurate. Might try a BME280 one of these days as well.
Older setup with a 5110 display that’s been outside in a detached room outside on a pi-plate for 4+ years using an old model-B pi. Temps are degF, with two ds18b20 and the pi motherboard temperature displayed. I also send the data to MQTT on the LAN and have it integrated into my main non-WF weewx setup as well.
I have run the gear battery-powered using an Adafruit 500C power booster and some cell phone(ish) batteries, but the power usage is too high. For a quick temperature check that runs a year on AA batteries I personally can’t beat a $18 Acurite thing that I can get at Home Depot which has a display for inside/outside temp/humidity that is amazingly accurate. But the fun here is building your own of course…
Heapkit, Radio Shack, Ramsey Electronics, Lafayette, and other similar electronic kit vendors are having a hard time attracting the iPhone generation to build things. Personally, I blame RoHS solder for all of the world’s ills, but that’s besides the point.
Arduino (and in many regards the Raspberry Pi) are the new Heathkit. Companies like Adafruit and Sparkfun are turning out all kinds of neat electronics modules, that you can link to a Pi, Arduino, or my new favorite ESP8266/NodeMCU on a plugboard as illustrated above to make anything that you can dream of…including weather stations…
I remember Lafayette’s Radio Shack… one huge room which seemed like hundreds of CB sets, antennas, coax, mikes & rotors! Radio Shack was good for flashlight batteries if that. Little stock & dumb sales force. Surprised they lasted as long as they did.
I’ve played with the BME280, its nice that it has pressure but the temperature is a bit off as it has a self-heating issue. The SHT31 is one of the best in class (price range) good temperature and RH out of the box. There are plenty on ebay and aliexpress. The ESP8266 creates a bit of heat so I will have to mount it outside the box.
