Selecting A Weather Station For Web Based Display

[RowanSB]

Hi,

I'm new to all this. The weather station closest to us has shut down, and I thought I'd look into the possibility of setting up my own weather station. Looking at what's available, all the ones I've found seem to have a sensor "pole" or other assembly, and a display unit that fits inside a building and displays the results. I don't need the display unit, since my primary interest is to create a weather web site for our village. In any case, I sit in front of a computer all day, and it would be more convenient for me to look at the weather on my computer screen than to go and look at the display unit. Also, surely, this should be substantially cheaper.

Is there a sensor unit that will talk directly to a PC, with some associated software that runs on the PC to keep history, convert units, display graphs and all that? It needs to offer all the normal sensors - temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, pressure, rainfall, solar radiation etc.

I don't mind having the PC running 24/7 - it does this already...

Thanks - Rowan

[Dorsetbred]

Hi,

I'm new to all this. The weather station closest to us has shut down, and I thought I'd look into the possibility of setting up my own weather station. Looking at what's available, all the ones I've found seem to have a sensor "pole" or other assembly, and a display unit that fits inside a building and displays the results. I don't need the display unit, since my primary interest is to create a weather web site for our village. In any case, I sit in front of a computer all day, and it would be more convenient for me to look at the weather on my computer screen than to go and look at the display unit. Also, surely, this should be substantially cheaper.

Is there a sensor unit that will talk directly to a PC, with some associated software that runs on the PC to keep history, convert units, display graphs and all that? It needs to offer all the normal sensors - temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, pressure, rainfall, solar radiation etc.

I don't mind having the PC running 24/7 - it does this already...

Thanks - Rowan

Rowan, firstly welcome to Netweather.

I "think" that you'll find the cheaper units are those with display units as the market for low end units is the volume market where there's a need to display what's measured.

So if you want sensors and some form of device to take that data ready for use, I think your looking more up market.

So depending on your outlay I suppose you'd look for those types of sensors.

I run a Lacrosse unit, with a display head, that I can't see, but the data is fed straight into a netbook(7" screen) and from there fed straight to the webpage, total outlay £350, in your case you already have the laptop so would be cheaper.

So really what your seeking is what's available, the display unit IS the device to take the information, and then some software, such as weather display takes that information and converts it into a webpage which is uploaded to the web. Click on my link in this reply to see what I capture, from my setup.

Edited June 11, 2011 by Dorsetbred