Looking for a DIY Screen/Display Solution

[Jeremy David]

I moved into a new home a few months ago and have been wanting to build my own weather station with a RPi and route it wirelessly to display on another RPi with an LCD or epaper screen of sorts in my kitchen. I believe I have gotten away from the idea of building my own weather station because I was wanting to power it with PoE, but it looks like the HAT that gives that functionality might not work the best in hotter operating temps on my roof.

So I think I have settled on getting either a Tempest or an Ecowitt and just route the data to Weewx on a RPi or Arduino with a screen attached. However, and maybe I am just blind, but I can't seem to find a project build on making a display screen that could project the data, would someone happen to have any links to one? I swear I found one weeks ago when I was looking for something else and can't find it again. I have seen ones that just run Raspbian and have a browser up with Weewx or running an Android app on an old tablet, but was hoping for something more plug in and start up for some of the less tech savvy people in my house.

I'm thinking this should be possible, but maybe I'm overestimating?

Thank you in advance!

[vince]

I assume you meant "display" the data, not "project" the data there.

I doubt you can get there cheaper than a Kindle Fire 8" or bigger for $40 or so if you catch a sale, and run FullyKioskBrowser on it to keep the display on for any skin/dashboard you want.   If you go a little bigger in the display, the Belchertown skin looks 'really' good for weewx on something in the 10" size range.

You can run weewx and the Belchertown skin for a really nice looking dashboard the Kindle Fire can display for you.  Works great.

[Dave Webb KB1PVH]

 I'm thinking about doing this project. 

https://www.hackster.io/lmarzen/esp32-e-paper-weather-display-a2f444

Dave - KB1PVH




Sent from my Galaxy S21

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[Mark Fraser]

I used an LCD screen and made this https://www.printables.com/model/499066-hanging-case-for-waveshare-8-display

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[Jeremy David]

Correct, display/project, they are synonymous in my mind. I have an old Fire that I could use, and might use in testing phase, I just had my mind on more of a project build, but definitely keeping that open. I didn't know about FullyKioskBrowser, so that's a big help for if I go that route!

[Jeremy David]

That's the article that I had seen that I was referring to that I couldn't find again, I know that one doesn't use Weewx, but assume it could be done.

On Monday, September 18, 2023 at 2:54:53 PM UTC-5 Dave Webb KB1PVH wrote:

 I'm thinking about doing this project. 

https://www.hackster.io/lmarzen/esp32-e-paper-weather-display-a2f444

Dave - KB1PVH




Sent from my Galaxy S21

[Jeremy David]

That's pretty much exactly what I was looking for Mark! Would you happen to have insight or a project build you may have followed?

[Mark Fraser]

On 19/09/2023 05:19, Jeremy David wrote:
> That's pretty much exactly what I was looking for Mark! Would you happen
> to have insight or a project build you may have followed?
>
> On Monday, September 18, 2023 at 3:08:00 PM UTC-5 Mark Fraser wrote:
>
> I used an LCD screen and made this

> https://www.printables.com/model/499066-hanging-case-for-waveshare-8-display <https://www.printables.com/model/499066-hanging-case-for-waveshare-8-display>

>
> On Mon, 18 Sept 2023, 18:30 Jeremy David, <jeremy...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I moved into a new home a few months ago and have been wanting
> to build my own weather station with a RPi and route it
> wirelessly to display on another RPi with an LCD or epaper
> screen of sorts in my kitchen. I believe I have gotten away from
> the idea of building my own weather station because I was
> wanting to power it with PoE, but it looks like the HAT that
> gives that functionality might not work the best in hotter
> operating temps on my roof.
>
> So I think I have settled on getting either a Tempest or an
> Ecowitt and just route the data to Weewx on a RPi or Arduino
> with a screen attached. However, and maybe I am just blind, but
> I can't seem to find a project build on making a display screen
> that could project the data, would someone happen to have any
> links to one? I swear I found one weeks ago when I was looking
> for something else and can't find it again. I have seen ones
> that just run Raspbian and have a browser up with Weewx or
> running an Android app on an old tablet, but was hoping for
> something more plug in and start up for some of the less tech
> savvy people in my house.

> I'm thinking this should be possible, but maybe I'm overestimating?
>
> Thank you in advance!

You need to have the Belchertown skin and the mqtt extensions installed
on the Raspberry Pi that is running your weather station.

On another Raspberry Pi I installed Raspberry Pi OS, created a file in
.config/autostart called kiosk.desktop which contained:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=conky
Exec=/home/<username>/kiosk.sh
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false

In the home directory, I created the kiosk.sh file which contained:

#!/bin/bash

# Run this script in display 0 - the monitor
export DISPLAY=:0

# Disable xset blanking.
xset s noblank
xset s off
# Hide the mouse from the display
unclutter &

# If Chrome crashes (usually due to rebooting), clear the crash flag so
we don't have the annoying warning bar
sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/'
/home/<username>/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences
sed -i 's/"exit_type":"Crashed"/"exit_type":"Normal"/'
/home/<username>/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences

# Run Chromium and open tabs
/usr/bin/chromium-browser --kiosk --window-position=0,0 <kiosk website> &

# Start the kiosk loop. This keystroke changes the Chromium tab
# To have just anti-idle, use this line instead:
xdotool keydown ctrl; xdotool keyup ctrl;
# Otherwise, the ctrl+Tab is designed to switch tabs in Chrome

In both files, replace <username> with your username and <kiosk website>
with the URL that points to the Kiosk page in Belchertown.

[weewx-user]

I took the easy way out.

Samsung Tab 7, cheap tablet stand from Amazon, Fully Kiosk Browser

Installed weewx-wdc skin that way I wanted.

Opened the local URL in FKB.

Done

The Tab 7 was much less than a Pi, Fully Kiosk Browser is free and designed to do this sort of thing. The WDC skin is much better suited to a display like this than Belchertown skin.

Now, if I simply wanted to play with this and that to see what I could do, sure a display hat and all would be the way to go.