john.halford@gmail.com Retired but worked at Australian Bureau of Meteorology BMTC as TO(Obs)email me if you wish to discuss or share ideas. I need to update this page mentioning Experimenting with night vision camera settings. I have been able to capture low light images and occasionally the software makes loops and even more occasionally manages to tweet them. Long exposures are required so on dark nights the Raspberry Pi does not have enough time to do everything else I am asking of it. First I tried a Raspberry Pi A3+ in suburban Wantirna, plenty of city lights. I have shifted it to Cowes on Phillip Island where there is less city lights, the Version 2 camera does a much better job at detecting clouds at night, although at Cowes with less urban lighting it is still difficult. Currently I have only 1 Version 2 camera and will leave it at Cowes for the time being. Now testing Raspberry Pi V2 Camera 10 second time exposure stills for this video clip around midnight local [moonlit as well] Previous test Raspberry Pi V1 camera, would only take 6 second time lapse stills. Clouds in Suburbia illuminated by Streetlights. I had a small larve of something crawling around inside the camera!!!, used a cotton bud and Methylated spirits to clean the video sensor!! 95% of WMO WW codes require a continuous observation for up to the last hour. Power supply, 12-18v cable to camera, 12-24v to 5v converter for raspberry Pi - logging average and peak currents. Waterproofing with plastic domes - internal reflections, how better to mount them. Now using Raspberry Pi 3A+, faster processing of loops. Use of ephem software to compute sunrise/sunset times to govern when I capture loops. Overheating in summer - have included heat sinks and fans - yet to see how effective this will be on warmer months [Tomorrow is our shortest day!]. I keep tweaking software list the variables and suggested impacts they make. Possible improvements [eg archive loops of each day, trying MP4. - done, although emailing them to me has has intermittent success. See whole Day loop way down below. Use of ssh [Putty.exe] sftp [FileZilla] as well as https://remote.it/ to communicate and update/tinker with software remotely. The primary power supply is from a GPO but with a smart wifi switch so that if all else fails I can reboot or turn it off from anywhere on the internet with a phone app. Monitoring the CPU temperature so that in warmer months I can see how effective my heat-sink/fan work. A work in progress I have been playing around with a Raspberry Pi Zero and a fish-eye camera, looking virtually straight up. Mental gymnastics to view with approximate North at the top [obviously South at the bottom] but West is on the right and East is on the left! [imagine lying on your back looking up]. Note if I was clever enough to orientate the camera correctly could directions [and speeds?] could be derived. Avconv to join stills to make loops. The Raspberry Pi takes a still every 30 seconds, for 300 pictures. These it compiles this into a MP 4 video then sends it to twitter. This happens every 60 minutes. The resulting file is posted to twitter. (@RedRocksWeather) [Two sites, Wantirna Melbourne and Cowes Phillip Island, apart from some site specific items, identical software as 'improvements are made. The more pictures in the loop the more detail/smoother video you get, but takes longer to compile [300 images 10 -20 minutes]. I had tried 30 minute loops but tended to clutter twitter up. Note videos could have just been emailed to me but then you would not have seen them. I could imagine the loops being useful for short term forecasting/reviewing recent events. Whole Day daylight loops archive for records. I use a mounted USB drive to archive videos so in the event of a major SD card corruption, archive is not lost. I also store the operational scripts on the USB drive. I can tweek sofyware, upload to the USB drive from where they become operational with a simple reboot. I realise the exposure is not ideal, but we love our trees. Still a work in progress.. Much higher with limited skyline interruptions [trees] would be lots better. From time to time it emails me, booting, ip address, CPU temperature [stops over 70 Deg C]. 24 Feb 2019 trying a python routine to say when the sun rises and sets to start and stop capture, also have set slightly better resolution but capture approx only every 20 seconds. Still over 10 minutes to compile but it seems to work ok. Basic steps, On rebooting the one script on the SD card and not on the USB copies the USB scripts to the SD card (a probably unneccessary safety step) Picamera captures up to 4500 images to save a day's worth of clouds [every 20 seconds.] Processing stops after sunset so a power down stop is not so critical for the Sd card. . On an earlier prototype it failed due to inadequate waterproofing; also the CPU shuts down on hot days. The unit is now mounted in a poly-carbonate dome designed for a downward facing security camera. I have added a fan but cooling needs more work. Communication is via a USB WiFi dongle on the end of a USB extension lead. Ideally I would like to mount it on the pitch of a corrugated iron roof, may be able to thread USB extension to inside to where WiFi can be contacted. Unit includes 12-24v to 5v micro USB power adaptor, thus feeding 12-15 v on a long lead results in stable voltage at the unit. I have a Wifi connected power outlet that switches on and off accurately by time - also in the event I need to reboot this can be switched OFF and then ON from wherever I have internet. plugged in to this is a 15V plugback, just to make sure there is sufficient voltage to the DC-DC converter. Could have Sular panel charging 12v battery and possibly a USB 4G internet connection. Keeping Grey matter active. A day's clouds over our house on Phillip Island on AFL Grand Final Day Another day's Clouds This one was from Wantirna, note the shadows of the higher layers of cloud. This is one of the short clips - this size I get by email. [now sorted out how to tweet short mp4 files] Another one with a southerly change with clouds from different directions A full day, 6am to 8pm daylight saving. Different directions for different layers of clouds Still a work in progress. john.halford@gmail.com Retired but worked at Australian Bureau of Meteorology BMTC as TO(Obs) |