Cloud Sensor -- Alpha One Field Deployment

Today we visited my in-laws for our usual Sunday lunch, and I took along the cloud sensor to demonstrate for my father-in-law. He's a retired millwright with a strong sense of curiosity, so he enjoyed seeing it a lot. We set it up by a gazebo (?) he has in his back yard, with the Pi hanging from the wall and the sensor clipped to the roof:

After some clouds rolled out, it got seriously sunny. The data reflected that:

For the record, the ambient temperature is not really to be trusted. It kept reading in the mid-thirties, but a nearby thermometer showed nothing higher than 25 all day. And when the sensor is deployed here, it seems to register about a 10 degree higher temp for the sky; doubtless it's the combination of the wide FOV (90 degrees) and the narrow slice of the sky it can see from my front porch.

The day before I'd bought a plastic container to use as an enclosure, so we kicked around ideas about how to make it work. I'd picked it because the clipping lid seemed like it would keep out the weather quite well, especially since the lid completely overhangs the container -- but I'd forgotten to think about shedding water. The lid is recessed maybe half a centimetre, and any rain would just pool in there -- not what I want. We agreed that the enclosure definitely needs at least a flat roof, and ideally something rounded that would let rain roll off. A plastic bowl with a flat bottom would do the trick nicely.

So what worked well?

• Wireless worked without a hitch -- very happy with this, as I wasn't sure it would reach from inside to the back yard
• Data logging worked too, including status updates when rebooting
• Good to kick around ideas
• Got script working to analyze the CSC and turn it into hour-by-hour predictions; some initial ideas about how to store that data, and how to visualize that and logged temperature data

Needs work:

• Enclosure
• Committed API key to git without noticing; had to generate a new one

Next up:

• Desolder header pins so eval board can be mounted with the sensor poking through the lid of whatever
• New enclosure
• Think about how to store CSC predictions

If you're interested:

• Thingspeak channel (infrequently updated)
• Code for this project at Gitlab