The ZEWS history:
In February 2018 the Open Source Group starts working on the ZEWS as an expanded implementation of the OSWS (Open Source Weather Station) project that I created to make the students more aware of the global Weather Conditions.
On March 2018 first prototype is completed with one Arduino Uno I2C Master outputing the main data from the following sensors:
1. Thermometer: Temperature measurement
2. Hygrometer: Humidity measurement
3. Barometer: Atmospheric pressure measurement
4. Lux-meter: Measurement of light
Sensors 1 to 3 housing is prototyped for testing.
In April 2018 Anemometer Wind Speed & Direction are completed as well as the Pyranometer is at work in progress. The second prototype and first release of the ZEWS is completed with one Arduino Uno I2C Master outputing the main data from the following sensors:
1. Anemometer: Wind speed and direction
2. Thermometer: Temperature measurement
3. Hygrometer: Humidity measurement
4. Barometer: Atmospheric pressure measurement
5. Lux-meter: Measurement of light
We finished also programming the Raspberry Pi as a DB and Web server and presented the project at the school.
EXPANDED TECHNICAL DETAILS
Meteorological Data Visualization
ZeWS is a high-performance environmental observatory providing real-time weather analytics and historical trend logging.
- Atmospheric Sensor Fusion: Simultaneously captures data from a BME280 (Temp, Hum, Pressure), an LDR (Light intensity), and a Rain Sensor. The Arduino processes these disparate analog and I2C signals into a unified serial data stream.
- High-Contrast Dashboard: Renders the data on a large 20x4 I2C LCD. The firmware includes a "Weather Forecasting" algorithm based on the barometric pressure trend (Zambretti Algorithm).
Connectivity
- Cloud Telemetry Bridge: (Advanced version) Connects to a WiFi-enabled ESP8266 to push the "Zeus" data to a ThingSpeak channel, allowing the user to view their backyard weather from any web browser.