LinkSprite Weather Station Kit With Solar Panel powered by LinkNode and LinkSpriteIO

Posted by: admin , June 25, 2016

LinkSprite weather station is one kind of LinkSprite IoT kit which is powered by ESP8266 WiFi SoC. This kit can automatically collect environmental data including temperature, humidity and pressure, and display them on the local LCD. At the same time, it would upload these data periodically to LinkSprite IoT cloud server. User can check them on the website or using APP. This also is an open source product and you can download the hardware and software from the website.

Features

LinkNode D1
Temperature & humidity sensor
Pressure sensor
RTC module
16×2 SerLCD
Solar powered
Automatically sync data to LinkSpriteIO

Tutorial

1. Hardware assembling

There are 6 acrylic panels to build a case for weather station

Mount the solar panel onto the D panel, connect solar panel and battery to power management module

Use screws to mount the LinkNode D1 and T&M sensor module onto the B panel
Use Blue-tack to paste the pressure sensor module and RTC module on B panel

Mount the SerLCD on the A panel

Mount the button module on the E or F panel

According to the following connection diagram to connect the LinkNode D1 and other peripherals

2. Access to LinkSpriteIO

a. Register to or sign in LinkSpite.io

– Go to My devices –> Create DIY device

Create a new device:

Device Name: any name
Device Type: 03(Weather station)
Group Name : any name

Open the new created Device and get Device ID

Go to My profile to get your own API key

3. Software programming

a. Install Arduino IDE

Make sure you have installed Arduino IDE with ESP8266 Arduino core, details you can check here

b. Prepare the libraries

Download the Arduino project and related libraries from github
Unzip the WeatherStationLibraries.zip and move the files to the Arduino/libraries which is located in your account directory
Open Arduino IDE and go to Sketch –> Include Library –> Manage Libraries
Search the wifimanager and install it

c. Update and your program

Using Arduino IDE to open the WeatherStation Arduino project
Update Arduino project with your own deviceID and apikey

d. Download the program

Configure the board type and select the serial port which is recognized by your PC when using usb cable to connect to PC and LinkNode D1.

Click the run button to program LinkNode D1

4. Run and test

After upload the program, the LinkNode D1 will create a AP called LinkNodeAP
Use your mobile phone to connect this AP
Open a browser and enter the IP address 10.0.1.1 and you will see the following website:

Click the button configure WiFi
Select your WiFi AP which you want to connect and enter your WiFi password
If connecting failed, you can go to the same website to configure it again

Short press the button on the weather station and it will turn on the backlight of LCD
Long press the button and it will change the display information