How to get data plots from the temp/press/humid sensor?

[gert4git]

Hello All,

New allsky user here. Apologies if I'm asking a noob question. I have some experience with RPI and linux but not with allsky. I deployed a pre-made package from Daniel Nimmervoll. Got me started quite OK. All is running on the bench. Not deployed to glass dome and outside, yet.

Question. I have that nice BME280 sensor attached to the RPI4. Can I get plots from the measured data? I.e. daily / nightly maybe weekly / monthly temperature / pressure etc. Something like the RPI4 weather stations do.

Thanks & Clear Skies,
Gert

[EricClaeys]

@gert4git,

Welcome to Allsky! I hope you enjoy is as much as I have.

Allsky comes with some basic modules, and there are a lot more on our Allsky Modules repository. Many of them are for various sensors.

@Alex-developer is our sensor guru so I'll let him answer your question.

Eric

[gert4git]

Thank you, Eric for the welcome.

I may need to find some reading on what can be done to add sensor / plotting modules and how to use them. I have an RPI4 weather station (that shows nice numbers and daily / weekly plots) and I was wondering if the sensor in the allsky can do the same. I haven't really found a place on the allsky (local) website that would mention weather plots from the sensor. (Other than the momentary values used in the overlay).

Cheers,
Gert

[EricClaeys]

I suggest waiting for @Alex-developer to reply. He has a lot of sensors and is adding some graphs to the next Allsky release. I'm sure he can answer all your questions.

[EricClaeys]

In the meantime you may want to look at all the modules in the Allsky Modules repository. Keep in mind that Alex is doing a pretty big update for all the Modules in the next release.

[Alex-developer]

Right now to get those charts you would have to use one of the extra modules to export the data then using something like grafana to display it.

As Eric mentioned in the next major release I am adding the ability to graph any of the data captured by Allsky or its modules.

This is a screenshot of the early prototype

[gert4git]

@Alex-developer

That will be awesome! Great job!!

Wondering about the location of the sensor. Do people have it inside the enclosure? Or outside? Inside under a glass dome the temperature might be skewed.

Thanks & Clear Skies,
Gert

PS Alas, answering / commenting my own post. There's the option to have two sensors, one inside and one outside. Are folks doing that?

[EricClaeys]

@gert4git,
My Pi is in the desert mountains with very low humidity so dew is rarely a problem. I have a fan in my case that pulls in filtered outside air (lots of dust), passes it over the Pi, then past the camera and into the dome on one side via some holes, and then out the dome through screening to the outside. The air goes through the dome to eliminate any dew after a rainy day.

I don't have any external sensors, but instead, use the temperature reported by the Pi to adjust the fan speed. The Pi temperature and fan speed appear on the WebUI's "System" page using an Allsky setting. I wrote a program to query the Pi temperature and adjust the fan as needed. I did this before Allsky had Modules, so it's possible I could replace my stuff with a module.

Because of my low humidity I don't care about the outside temperature - I think that's needed only to determine the dew point? And I don't care about the temperature inside my case. I only care about the temperature of the Pi and the camera (although I don't do anything with the camera temperature because I think the fan keeps it "cool enough".

Before deciding where to put sensor(s) I think you need to first decide what you want to cool.

Unless you have a plastic lens that could melt or a plastic dome that might melt (which you don't), I'm not sure why anyone would care about the temperature inside the dome, other than a general interest.

I think I have seen posts where people have inside and outside sensors. Look in the "Show and Tell" Discussions. You may also want to ask on the Allsky Facebook page.