Detecting Cloudy or Clear night

[Bashy]

during the crossover period, why not just show sunrise/dawn and sunset/dusk? Or, use the condition BEFORE the crossover, until crossover is completed.

Hi Bill, read the post above your last post m8, David said that

Brian added a feature last week to have Dawn & Dusk condition icons to help mask the change over (17th Oct 10.37M Build 03).

As for mine, its looking very good, Is now 1.7 below the main temp, so it looks like i dont
need to do any more to it other than shove it up on the mast once the wind has drop some

Thanks for all your help and for bearing with me folks

[Weather Display]

next update I will reduce the averaging period....because if using say 1 wire extra temperature, then you are not getting very frequent new temperature readings updates, compared to a labjack, say, which is every 1 second
(otherwise there is too much lag in it)

[skyewright]

As for mine, its looking very good, Is now 1.7 below the main temp

That's great. Well done.

[Bashy]

Thats what i thought, its still dropping and down to 2.0 below, thats happened once the gap
in the top was made a lot smaller

But as its still dropping over a matter of 4 hours, i think i will use 1.2 as the clear setting, any
thoughts on that?

[zooto68]

Guys, there has been plenty of talk about the sensor that points at the sky, but what about the other one? Where does that go? Is that one inside a jar too? Is it near the sky sensor? Is it open to the elements? How does the other end work please?

[Weather Display]

are you refering to a temp sensor in a jar as solar sensor?

[daveq]

I believe he means which sensor is being compared to the cloud sensor temp. 

I've been thinking of make one with the reference sensor next to the cloud sensor instead of comparing it to the ISS temp.  Thoughts?

--Dave

[TokKiwi]

Guys, there has been plenty of talk about the sensor that points at the sky, but what about the other one? Where does that go? Is that one inside a jar too? Is it near the sky sensor? Is it open to the elements? How does the other end work please?

Welcome to the forum Zooto68 - the reference temperature device is the normal weather station sensor and in the picture above on a previous post of mine, it shows there that it is referencing against the normal weather station outdoor temperature.  So you only need one sensor up high looking at the sky.  However, mine is brought into Weather-Display by linking into the 1-Wire network solar sensor device which i do have up on my roof.  And this can be a temp sensor as well instead of a photodiode called a solar in a jar device working off the radiant heat energy hitting a temp sensor directly.  It may also work as a night-time cloud sensor, Bashy has one that is doing both I believe.

Daveq
Dave, I was going to do that, but it is linked in to the solar sensor board, and is working very well comparing against the Wx Stn outdoor temp sensor.  It seems a better place to put the cloud sensor up high to save getting ambient building radiation or ground etc, and now I have a spare temp sensor which may well become my grass temp sensor!!  Also, there are two means of adjusting the calibration of the new sky temp sensor with an overcast minimum offset = actual ambient, and the max difference of colder sensor with a clear dark sky.  Plus, if your extra temps sensor is reading higher at fully overcast, then in Dallas Extra temp sesnors, you can make an offset adjustment, or in [Control Panel] - [Offsets and Initial rain] you can adjust offsets for your weather station extra sensors, for those that are addons to the weather station equipment as oem, in there.

Cheers

Graeme
NZ

[daveq]

I have several temp transistors from H-B and have to setup 1-wire anyway to have the cloud sensor.  So may as well use two hopefully matched sensors.

BTW, elephant glue would be ? in American.    cyanoacrylate (Crazy Glue) maybe?

--Dave

[TokKiwi]

Yes that's right Dave.  I was going to write the proper name of the glue in there, just watch you don't glue your fingers as well.  I had to leave a weight on it for 15mins to hold it down properly.  Hopefully upload the photos tonight...   I'm very impressed with the differentiation I was getting, there seem to be some secrets to getting it right if you don't have a vaccum flask for the proper black body radation theory to work, and the main secret is to get the probe and plate into as small a gap as possible - ie no ambient air around the plate to dampen the cooling effect and a blind under it to stop any lower upwards or sideways radiation from trees, buildings or ground etc.

I think that up to now, you don't have choice over which is the ambient temp sensor, it defaults to the wx stn proper Outdoor reading.  Unless you designate a 1-wire weather station and use one for the outdoor temp.  Comment Brian?

Graeme

[zooto68]

Welcome to the forum Zooto68 - the reference temperature device is the normal weather station sensor and in the picture above on a previous post of mine, it shows there that it is referencing against the normal weather station outdoor temperature.

I don't have a weather station. I am building my own cloud sensor from scratch. so, If I am doing that, where do I put the non-sky sensor? In another clear jar? In the ground? Inside something?

Thanks

[Weather Display]

simple answer: in the shade (idealy a stevenson screen type instrument shelter)

[Bashy]

there seem to be some secrets to getting it right if you don't have a vaccum flask for the proper black body radation theory to work, and the main secret is to get the probe and plate into as small a gap as possible - ie no ambient air around the plate to dampen the cooling effect and a blind under it to stop any lower upwards or sideways radiation from trees, buildings or ground etc.
Graeme

Hi Graeme

Last night i got over 2.0 perhaps 2.4 (guessing now as i went bed) and my setup is perhaps the crudest
of the lot, I have, perhaps a inch gap in mine and nothing below the sponge, so theres lots of air at the
bottom, also where its positioned for testing purposes it can see everything around it thats over 3ft tall
including the 3 houses, closest about 8ft or so, so in theory mine shouldnt work as well as it is doing....

The main thing that made the whole thing work was closing the gap as there was about 2 inches of air
space, now theres perhaps about 1 inch max perhaps less, i will take a photo later on so you can see
the gap thats left top and bottom..

I just hope putting it up on the mast does not impede the results

[TokKiwi]

My promised photographs... The first is the pic of the DS18S20 which holds its own ROM-ID and a mini logic processor plus the sensor itself.  Now the two outside legs are classified as GND and B+ which doesn't seem to make much sense if you join them together but that's what you must do and it becomes the GND for the signal.  The other center leg is the Data or DQ leg which must be connected to the DQ central conector of three on the solar sensor board.

The second is a shot of the DS18S20 glued down to the black painted paint tin lid (actually from a tin of car wax!), the underside was painted white and the polystyrene was pushed hard against it and a bit of sealant used to glue it into place.  The probe and wires were also painted black.

Note, this is my first attempt and I figured it may also be possible to make it in a much smaller format, as others have done inside light bulbs or small glass jars.  These materials that I used were at hand at home and took 2 hrs to put together - incuding the installation on the roof.

[TokKiwi]

Next is the black lid pushed to the top of the container, and the polystyrene pushed up and glued in behind it. 

I added another bit of polystyrene on edge to ensure it also kept the lid in place.  And there is a galvanised tin plate to mount it on and which is mounted on my brackets for the webcam box.

The second shot is an untidy view of my arrangement of stuff on the roof.  The glass jar holds the solar sensor (in a ping pong ball mounted on a modified 12v car indicator bulb!)  The box behind is the webcam box with the Logitech Quick Cam Pro 9000 and a demister heating circuit and PC fan.

The last photo is a modified one of the solar sensor board where it shows how to add the remote photodiode for the solar sensor (the white wires at bottom) and the 12V external power (black wires) and the extra temperature sensor (mimic grey wires) for this project.

Graeme