For those that want to build arduino projects without programming try XOD.io

[dennis]

is an IDE which is like lego, join up blocks and set the data and uploaded it to your arduino and away you go.

downloaded it yesterday and built a weather station using a temp and humidity sensor and a rain drop sensor (simple one that is just tracks and a comparator chip). With a I2C 1602 LCD and a buzzer.

Displays temp humidity on one line and dry rain on the other and falshes the backlight and sounds the buzzer when raining.

Did take a nand gate and an and gate to get it to work though.

Next is add a wind speed sensor and direction, the direction is hard, maybe a grey scale encoded disk and some optical sensors unless someone has an easier way?

[Harry Bloomfield]

dennis@home laid this down on his screen :

A tiny magnet fixed on the moving disk and four or eight tiny reed switches around the circumference, is what some commercial systems use. If the 'tail' of the vane, forms a Y from above, there will be less tendency for the vane to flutter in the wind.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Harry Bloomfield pretended :

I meant to add, you can encode the reed switches with resistors. Measure the resistance, you have the wind direction, but be wary of times when two adjacent reeds might be activated - it would need to produce a value between the two adjacent reeds.

[Tim Watts]

Sounds very nice - I'm going to check this out :)

[Richard Jones]

worked. The OP web address didn't seem to

[Brian Gaff]

I've not heard of any of this. When you can build really useful stuff when you cannot see that interfaces via one of the voice assistants, then we have really arrived. Wind direction? No grey scale is really too analogue. I'd have thought some kind of digital direction indicator already existed. Don't they have them in phones to tell which way around it is? Brian

[Dave Liquorice]

My Oregon Scientific WX200 station uses a stationary reed switch and moving magnet for wind speed. Direction is from a variable resistor with no stops and a track that almost meets.

A Grey encoded disc would be a little coarse unless you had a lot of "bits" and some means of getting each of those bits to your 'duino. Variable pot the resolution is down to the number of bits of you ADC,

8 bits - 1.4 degrees. Must see if I can source one, the one in service is begining in to show it's age, maybe up to 20 years.

[dennis]

You can get magnetometers and build a magnetic compass with one. The problem being that the sensor and electronics would be on the moving bit and so would the battery which starts to increase the inertia and hence its ability to track the wind direction. Not putting the battery in the moving bit would require slip rings or similar to get the power over and they wear and create friction.

[dennis]

That's doing well, the bearing failed in my maplin wind speed sensor after only 7 years. Note: must get a new bearing off ebay now maplin don't do spares.