Designing and Fabrication of IOT Micro Weather Station Shield for Arduino Mega Board

One of the project here is to build IOT Micro Weather Station

At HBCSE-TIFR, Mumbai we built and deployed one.

It is working flawlessly but for few hours (last time it worked 7 hours) after that device is automatically shutting down. I posted regarding this issue :point_down:

Mostly the issue is with the power management. So keeping this and all other issues in mind, we have decided to redesign a single shield for Arduino Mega (as we are using Arduino Mega Board). This shield will be completely modular, so that one can plug the market ready modules , such as bluetooth, RTC, WiFI, OLED etc.

This shield consist of following features:

  • It will hold polarised connectors for all the sensors.
  • Separate power management.
  • WiFi (for publishing data on internet) with software ON/OFF switching.
  • Bluetooth (for debugging purpose) with software ON/OFF switching.
  • Micro SD Card for offline data logging.
  • Tiny OLED (128 x 64) Display.
  • Real Time Clock ( for Date and Time Stamp).
  • On Board LM35 (Analog Temperature Sensor) and LDR.
  • On Board Buzzer, Potentiometer, switches, WS2812 Neo Pixel and few LEDs.

We welcome your ideas and suggestions for this Shield.

This is how new shield will look :point_down:

WS_v3_top

WS_v3_Bottom

We have already asked few vendors for the quotation of the above PCB and hopefully confirming the manufacturing today itself.

All those who will be completing the IoT Micro Weather Station: Temperature and Humidity will be getting this shield. So just complete it and reply us with images, videos, messages and get your shield for IOT Micro Weather Station.

Happy Exploration and Making.

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Wow! Great incentive for completing the first task. Way to go! Some of the participants may also find a way of making the board themselves or get it manufactured. Are you also going to share the PCB design?

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Yes @GN this complete project is open source, slowly will be releasing all the files such as Schematic, PCB Design, Code, STL files etc.

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You can look at the Globe Program, that was launched decades ago.

The following content is from the website.

"The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program is an international science and education program that provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process, and contribute meaningfully to our understanding of the Earth system and global environment. Announced by the U.S. Government on Earth Day in 1994, GLOBE launched its worldwide implementation in 1995.

Vision : A worldwide community of students, teachers, scientists, and citizens working together to better understand, sustain, and improve Earth’s environment at local, regional, and global scales.

Mission : To promote the teaching and learning of science, enhance environmental literacy and stewardship, and promote scientific discovery."

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A shield is an add on board with necessary electronics that connects to the arduino main board.
One will come across similar jargon if one uses a different main board.
Beagle bone has Capes.
RPi has hats.

All of these - hats, capes, shields - are merely add-on boards that interface some electronics to a micro controller / processor so that we may interact with it or it may interact with the environment.

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An add on board is made with a specific processor interface in mind. Such interfaces have specified physical dimensions, electrical characteristics and bus protocols.
An example would be a graphics add on card
Another example would be an addon sound card.

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Hello Guys finally our board form manufacturer arrived. Here it is

Component Mounting and Testing is still under process. Will soon Deploy it to our weather Station.

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How much did it cost?

What did you give to the PCB maker?

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Rs.250/- each

Gerber files and drill file.

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2019-07-27T18:30:00Z

Old shields of weather station has been changed with new one. Power shutdown issue solved, Now Data is publishing continuously, no shutdown observed since last 4 days.

Photos of old shield.

Photos of new shield

Now its time to move onto redesigning the mechanics and structure for Anemometer, Windvane and Rainguage, to make design more better, get more accurate data while keeping design modular, pluggable and easily troubleshoot-able.

This seems to be great opportunity for all of us to think and submit designs for next better iteration.

Happy designing!

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After completing the challenge will we get the designed PCB and we would have to do the smd soldering or will we receive it with the basic components like resistors and buzzers.

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@Paramveer happy to see you on platform and its great you are working on the challenge.

Yes we will provide you the weather station shield if you and your team complete the challenge. Getting a soldered board or unsoldered board, the choice is yours

So just get on the challenge, explore , come out with a different design, write optimised code.

Happy Exploration and Making.

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@Ashish_Pardeshi kindly share the BOM for the same.

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:slightly_smiling_face: Thanks

I require a 1-1 correspondence of SMD devices with the names printed on the PCB (for the “IOT Micro Weather Station Shield”) in order to populate the board. (e.g what is the type of resistor for R1… C1…IC4…etc? i require the list of SMD devices the board was designed for)

Thanks Regards
Sundar

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Hello @Sundar Please find the Part list attached which will help you with values of components, their packages and description.
I hope this will help you to get the shield ready and If you need more help please let us know.

Happy Shield Exploration ! :smiley: :+1:

Weather_Station_mega_shield_v3_Partlist.pdf (27.4 KB)

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step 1 measuring temperature and humidity completed here is the result
first i exposed it to warm water mist for about a minute followed by cold water mist,soledering iron and left still at last. The results are



































Sorry for too many images.