AcuRite 5-in-1 sensor and barometric pressure

[Bryan Parke]

Hi all.  Weewx is great! I'm very impressed with all that it can do.  Here is a bit about my setup.

1) AcuRite 5-in-1 pro broadcasting on 433mhz

2) Raspberry Pi with rtl-sdr capturing data using rtl_433

3) Using the sdr driver

4) Using mosquitto to publish real-time weather data and viewing that in belchertown realtime

5) Pushing every 10 minutes to the CWOP for APRS (https://aprs.fi/info/a/KM6YFK-13) 

All is working as expected, no issues at all.

My question is this: I'd like to get barometric pressure also, but the 5-in-1 doesn't have that.  My understanding is that in order to get barometric pressure, I would need to purchase the AcuRite receiver/screen and plug it in via USB to my raspberry pi; in that the barometric pressure sensor is actually in the screen/display unit.  

1) is that true?  Or is there actually another way to get the pressure using the 5-in-1? 

2) Is there another device that you all like that would accomplish the same thing?

Hopefully I'm asking the right question in the right way.  Ultimately I just want to also include the air pressure in my weather reports (see attachment, sad bottom right corner with no barometer info).

Thanks!

Bryan

[p q]

I have a 5in1 with the display and I'm pretty sure the barometric pressure is in the display. I get it via the USB connection. When I bought mine, it was one single package - I didn't have the option of not buying the display.

You could always build yourself a barometric pressure device that connects to the Pi. Something like this: https://tutorials-raspberrypi.com/raspberry-pi-and-i2c-air-pressure-sensor-bmp180/ or maybe https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9721

--
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 weewx-user+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/c566f689-b2c9-468c-8653-3c442ff0168e%40googlegroups.com.

--

Peter Quinn
(415)794-2264

[Bryan Parke]

Thanks for the info.  Yeah, I chose to get the 5-in-1 sensor all by itself, but that was because I didn't do my research first!  I just assumed the barometer was in the sensor, not the display.  I'll take a look at the project you linked.  

Thanks!

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to weewx...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/c566f689-b2c9-468c-8653-3c442ff0168e%40googlegroups.com.

--

Peter Quinn
(415)794-2264

[rich T]

If you can plug in your console, will get the pressure. If not, you can get a BME280 sensor for your pressure, inside temp and humidity.

[Bryan Parke]

Hi Rich,

Unfortunately, I didn't buy a console, just the outside 5-in-1 sensor.  Looks like I'll be getting the BME280 and figuring that out.  Thanks for the tip!

--
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 weewx-user+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/4df9f447-fcb3-409b-8d27-3e6c1f6ba7da%40googlegroups.com.

[Greg Troxel]

Bryan Parke <bryan...@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi all. Weewx is great! I'm very impressed with all that it can do. Here
> is a bit about my setup.
>
> 1) AcuRite 5-in-1 pro broadcasting on 433mhz
> 2) Raspberry Pi with rtl-sdr capturing data using rtl_433
> 3) Using the sdr driver
> 4) Using mosquitto to publish real-time weather data and viewing that in
> belchertown realtime
> 5) Pushing every 10 minutes to the CWOP for APRS (
> https://aprs.fi/info/a/KM6YFK-13)
>
> All is working as expected, no issues at all.
>
> My question is this: I'd like to get barometric pressure also, but the
> 5-in-1 doesn't have that. My understanding is that in order to get
> barometric pressure, I would need to purchase the AcuRite receiver/screen
> and plug it in via USB to my raspberry pi; in that the barometric pressure
> sensor is actually in the screen/display unit.
>
> 1) is that true? Or is there actually another way to get the pressure
> using the 5-in-1?
> 2) Is there another device that you all like that would accomplish the same
> thing?

My impression is that for the 5n1, like many other stations including
Davis, has the pressure sensor in the console/receiver, rather than in
the (outside) sensor suite.

Another approach is to get a BME280 or similar and read pressure from
it. I have an adafruit breakout board with one, and read temp, humidity
(in a room inside) and pressure, and send that over MQTT using an
ESP8266 and a few lines of code in lua (NodeMCU). You could hook this
up to your RPI directly - it's just i2c.

Beware that the BME280 and other such things read "station pressure",
which is the absolute air pressure at your location (modulo calibration
errors). Weather reports are generally "barometric pressure", which is
station pressure reduced to sea level based on the observed
characteristics, and I believe CWOP uses "altimeter pressure", which is
station pressure reduced assuming a standard atmosphere. (Barometric
pressure seems to require data from 12h ago and it's a FAQ why it's not
reported when a station is first installed.)

I would think at the 99% level, but I am not 100% sure, that weewx will
calculate barometric and altimeter pressure if you provide it with
station pressure and configured altitude.

You will need to get accurate altitude, and then you will probably need
a calibration tweak on top of that.

If you feel like having the acurite screen -- and then you can use USB
instead of needing rtlsdr -- that seems like a completely reasonable
approach. A friend has one and it seems to report pressure just fine
except that it is bizarrely configured for inHg instead of hPa :-)

[steeple ian]

Or you could get one of these:-

https://www.ambientweather.com/amwh32b.html

Works perfectly with SDR. Make sure you get the right frequency to match your other sensors.

Ian

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/CAPXDAYZfkVa%3Dg9iFFLFPzCJOSSak1KHQLkSxsRcrxof5nekodQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Greg Gowins]

So I have a similar setup to this that had been running fine in 3.9.x, except I also have an Acurite Lightning Meter and a BME280 chip connected, using the weewx extension from here to run it:  https://gitlab.com/wjcarpenter/bme280wx

I upgraded to Weewx 4 last night, and everything seems to be running ok except for weewx processing the data.  In the logs I see that it is reading the data from the chip fine, but it isn't making it in to the weewx .  When I see it process, it appears to be trying to put the BME280 data into fields for the lightning meter:

May 23 10:02:13 weatherstation weewxd: bme280: BME280 data compensated_reading(id=6e6ccd6e-39bd-42bb-8648-d9e1e855719c, timestamp=2020-05-23 10:02:13.100774, temp=27.089 °C, pressure=977.55 hPa, humidity=42.11 % rH)

May 23 10:02:13 weatherstation weewxd: bme280: {u'distance': 0, u'lastStrikeTime': 1590246128, u'strikes_total': 15, u'strikes': 0, 'dateTime': 1590246128, 'usUnits': 1}

May 23 10:02:13 weatherstation weewxd: sdr: MainThread: packet={u'distance': 0, u'lastStrikeTime': 1590246128, 'dateTime': 1590246128, 'usUnits': 1, u'strikes_total': 15}

May 23 10:02:13 weatherstation weewx[593] INFO weewx.restx: MQTT: Published record 2020-05-23 10:02:08 CDT (1590246128)

Any clue on where to look for troubleshooting this one?  When I upgraded weewx to 4, I used the existing weewx.conf.  I looked through the weewx.conf-4.0.0 to to see if anything jumped out, but nothing did.  Any info is appreciated.  Thanks!

Greg

[Richard Horobin]

I’m also using SDR to receive AcuRite 5n1, Ambient Weather and Fine Offset signals. Weewx.conf SDR step calls RTL433 to get the data. The -R parameters specify the devices by a coded model number.

I have Not specified frequencies, and the code seems to work well.