Thanks Tom - and intrigued you sailed into Opua, yes just down the road (or sea).
They've recently upgraded Opua Marina and is now the 'best in NZ' - https://www.nzherald.co.nz/marine/news/article.cfm?c_id=61&objectid=12265243 A bit of a surprise yesterday, but the smoke from Australia's fires arrived over Bay of Islands yesterday. This image was straight off the webcam. [image: paihia-australia-smoke.jpg] On Saturday, 4 January 2020 02:47:13 UTC+13, Thomas Keffer wrote: > > Sweet project! Looking forward to hearing more about it. > > One of my fondest memories is making landfall at Opua, just down the road, > on a passage from Tonga. It was dawn, and those hills were lit a fiery > orange-red. Beautiful scene after 6 days at sea! > > -tk > > On Thu, Jan 2, 2020 at 5:31 PM Alex Edwards <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> Happy 2020 everyone. Just another weather / webcam project, but hopefully >> a bit different >> >> Its a solar powered Raspberry Pi Zero WH, together with FineOffset WS2080 >> weather station, Pi Camera 1.3, 3G MiFi, EPever LS1024B solar controller, >> 26Ah battery (2nd hand) and 40W solar panel. Components placed in a >> UV-resistant plastic box to survive nasty NZ sun. Its all on a slighyl >> remote hill paddock overlooking the Bay of Islands in New Zealand. >> >> You can see the output here: >> https://horsetrekn.co.nz/paihia-weather-cam-bay-of-islands >> <https://horsetrekn.co.nz/paihia-weather-cam-bay-of-islands?fbclid=IwAR09ezC04UHcHfqlSi_OOJkqnfi2BQV2yllYH9zQHTNV2ZykoalOfmIGy-A> >> >> - WeeWX links at the bottom of the page. >> >> The idea is to take photos of the weather, but also of the nice view and >> any horses roaming around the hill paddock. The Pi currently uploads a >> new photo every 5 minutes to our webserver, and some basic JSON weather >> data as a very minimal WeeWX report. >> >> Once a day it uploads weather and solar power charts, generated using 2 >> WeeWX daemons. After weeks creating some EPever / EPsolar drivers, I >> spotted Mattew Wall had done something similar exactly the same time. I've >> modified that driver for my needs and created a straight forward skin. I'll >> upload my stuff to Github when its tidied a bit more. I also spent way >> too long creating other MODBUS 'map' style drivers I may upload too, or >> modify the driver to use - they were working well :) >> >> The idea of the 40W panel and quite large battery is the Pi should be >> able to keep running for around 5 days during winter/stormy weather, and >> overnight too for weather data. The setup could survive for 24hrs or so >> using a 7Ah battery and smaller panel. I've got the Pi's box stacked on >> another to get a better view, and using a 2nd hand barrel as a platform >> which I'll part fill with water for stability. >> >> I wonder about creating a more generic 'solar' project for WeeWX that >> could handle different solar controller 'drivers'? I also wonder about >> including a dummy 'solar driver' as an example in WeeWX? >> >> Next steps - >> * Raise camera a bit using a 2m camera cable on a pole. >> * Consider uploading WeeWX data more frequenty, possibly to another WeeWX >> process on the webserver which can then create the charts etc. >> * Provide an album and timelapse video of recent images. I already do >> this on the Pi, but not on the website. >> >> Some tips learned along the way :- >> >> * Mozjpeg does a great job at compressing JPEGs more, especially with >> ms-ssim tuning, key to saving mobile data etc. Other compression techniques >> took too long for debatable improvement. >> * The Pi seemed unreliable reading USB serial data, until I read about >> using a powered hub. Even though the USB load is quite low, this seems to >> help stability a lot. The hub is powered from a dual 12V-5V USB loom from >> the controller, the other USB powering the Pi. >> * The Pi Camera 1.3 seems A LOT nicer to use than the v2 - at least the >> versions I got. Less resolution, but much nicer colours, better exposure >> and sharper too. >> * sshReach.me is a handy way to login to the Pi over 3G. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "weewx-user" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/bf1c55d4-f6eb-4ad0-a941-5a373b5c592a%40googlegroups.com >> >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/bf1c55d4-f6eb-4ad0-a941-5a373b5c592a%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "weewx-user" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/4e41477d-e867-478a-be0b-58a41a808ee2%40googlegroups.com.
