Sparkfun rain and wind sensor

Projects General Guidance
1

Hi guys, a question for those who know, I was thinking of buying this kit to make a weather station with MySQL in micropython, but I don't know if it's compatible, could anyone tell me?

2

It doesn't look like that kit comes with the microcontroller. It is just a collection of sensors. If you want to use micropython, you can not go down the Uno path since it is not compatible. You will have to get an ESP32 and the ESP32 weather shield and go down that path.

3

Sparkfun recommends various boards that will work with the weather station kit and their sensor library here:

4

I use those sensors in my weather station, but not with microPython.

Potential problems that I can see are:

  • Rain sensor pulse is about 8ms, IIRC. Can microPython code guarantee to react to and not miss that?
  • Wind sensor could generate 40 pulses per second with a 60MPH wind, which would be a 12ms pulse every 25ms. Again, can microPython reliably cope with that?

I don't know enough about using microPython on compatible Arduino boards to know if these things will truly be a problem, I've only used python on PC/cloud environments. I know python will be much slower to execute than equivalent C/C++ code, probably at least 20x slower. I don't know how hardware interrupts are dealt with in microPython.

5

Hi man, thanks, I'm using an ESP32 with micropython drivers, what is the ESP32 weather shield for?

6

Thanks for the library man :call_me_hand::call_me_hand:

7

I would be doing a project that takes data every 1 sec, so being slower in milliseconds fortunately would not interrupt me, what type of sensors does your station use?

8

I'm not sure why you asked your question.

I did not buy them from Adafruit. I bought them from a shop chain called Maplin, which exists only on-line today. But the designs are clearly the same

9

I started with that kit

Mount the rain sensor on something more stable than the bracket they supply. When I first set mine up the mounting was unstable, wobbled in the wind and produced false counts for the rain.

The calibration factor for the rain was way off, I recalibrated mine, I'll try to find the factor I got but not now, just back from the pub.

10

Same topic?

11

Thanks

12

Thx :call_me_hand:

13

Hmm, yes? I don't know what you mean by topic. I was previously thinking of using C++, but now my group is working on using MicroPython on ESP32. So I was wondering if this component is supported, why, is there any problem?

14

This is a topic and we are discussing your questions in it. It got created when you pressed this button

Screenshot_20250703-203836-017
Screenshot_20250703-203836-017959×506 32.6 KB

15

The calibration factor I use is:

const float pulseTomm = 0.4329; // From testing with 750ml water

So 1 pulse corresponds to 0.4329mm of rain. 4 digits of precision is probably expecting too much, but that's the number I calculated.

As the comment suggests this is from pouring 750ml of water slowly into the rain sensor and checking how many pulses it produced, then calculating the depth of water would result from 750ml in a container with the dimensions of the top of the rain gauge. I also checked this against a shallow tray left outside in the rain, then measured the depth of water in the tray and compared that to what the rain sensor reported.