The DS18B20 is a Wifi module for less than $3.00 on ebay.

Has anybody used one?

I am thinking about using one for a ground temperature project I have been planning for a long time. That and of course i still have my weather station project in mind.

I haven't tried that wifi device but I like the price. So far I plan to use bluetooth for my ground temperature project. Since it's out in the field it will be battery powered and I am a little concerned about the bluetooth module using too much power so maybe I'll put it on a toggle switch so I can leave it off most of the time and just flip the switch when I want to upload data to my phone. Haven't figured it all out yet.

I was going to use a solar panel. My location is probable to far for bluetooth. I had been thinking of using ZigBee but for the price of the WiFi I will try that first.

So one of the first things I'll be looking for is a solar lithium battery charger, anybody done that?

RALPH Try this link might be some help..

SOLAR CHARGER

Jim

I bought the Sparkfun Sunny Bunny is uses the LT3652 controller chip. Thanks Jim

Let us know how it works out...

Jim

I am going through my weather parts bin and find I have a bunch of DS18B20 Dallas One Wire temperature sensors that I got a couple of years ago when Paul (Noter) mention making up a ground temperature station.

Now to figure out how to join the DS18B20's with the ESP8266 wifi. I might have to use a Arduino in between.

There is a forum for the ESP8266 so I should be able to get help there.

Now one question is how to treat a Lithium battery for the weather, it will be outside 24hr a day summer (hot 110°) and winter (cold -10°). I am thinking about burying it. I could dig a 3' - 4' hole with my post hole digger. What do you think any suggestions?

Of course this ain't what I am supposed to be working on, geeech!!

That should work fine. I would line the hole with pvc pipe with a cap glued on the bottom. Make a cap for the top with wires out the side. Insulate with fiberglass 12 to 16 inches. The ground should keep it fairly stable. One note what is the frost line there in your area? You should go below the frost line.

Jim

I don't believe the frost line is more than 18" we "usually" have about 30 days of <20° total.

The DS18B20 is a lot easier to use with an Arduino as compared to the nerdkit. You can get sample code at http://playground.arduino.cc/Learning/OneWire where the oneWire library is explained. Probably a good idea to start by hooking up some DS18B20's to an arduino and get the sample to work and go from there.

I have an old 12v car battery that I was thinking of using. I see that Menards has a solar charger for about $20 so maybe that is the way I will go.

How far is your ground temperature station going to be from your house? Do you expect to be able to reach it with WiFi from inside?

It will be 200' to one wifi router and 300' to another. A pretty clear line of sight without a lot trees in the way no buildings. Some people are reporting a 300yd range with the ESP8266 so I "should" be good.

I'll do some proto testing at my desk with different Arduino setups. I also ordered a couple of the ESPtoy to work with the ESP8266 I might want to add a Soil Moisture Sensor, barometric pressure, Humidity and Wind Speed. I have always wanted a weather station.

Apparently the ESP8266 is programmable like the Nerdkits I am not sure what the mcu is but following along in the forums it looks familiar.

I got a solar panel off ebay and the Sparkfun Sunny Bunny to charge a Lithium battery. What a horrible name.

duh, the ESP8266 is the mcu, I thought it was the module.

double duh, the mcu is apparently the L106 Diamond. The ESP8266 is the module!!

I am actually learning a lot googling around.

Here is a good Quick Start Guide.

To dig up an old thread, did anyone have any luck with the ESP8266? I have one working when I directly connect it to a computer with a FTDI converter. But when I plug it into a ATMEGA 324 (using this one so I can program on UART and plug the ESP8266 into the other) it doesn't work that great. I can send AT command fine but when I try to read back the reply from the ESP8266 its either gibberish or just a a few characters of the return message. I'm using fcsanf_P to read the UARD buffer.

Just asking if anyone had any tips?

I have a couple of long term projects that are installed and working that make use of the ESP8266 as a WIFI module. I am tracking water levels in large tanks using HCSR04 modules, as well as reporting ambient and water temperatures and the duty cycles of a couple of water pumps. I have the system set up to report the reading to a thinkspeek account that I regularly access using phone apps I have set up Vituino and ThingView Free. I have a Arduino mini pro 16 as the micro running the code to measure water level distances and temperatures. I like the Arduino mini as they are very compact. power regulation and crystals are self contained and its AT328p micro can easily be programmed using either C code as with the Nerdkit approach or using the Arduinio IDE.

My experience that the system occasionally stops communicating with the thingsspeek server. I have not identified where the issue is occurring. Perhaps once per month sometimes more often and somtimes much longer the system stops making contact and reporting the readings. I usually have to reset manually by interrupting the power supply for a few seconds to reestablish the communication. With my setup there are a number of possible locations that may be causing the problem i.e. the WiFi module, the micro or software on the micro, my WiFI router could all be involved. The system is installed in a location about 40 feet from the router and down below a floor, but overall it is responsibly reliable most of the time.

I have never used the programable capability on the ESP8266 other than as a WIFI module. My application required more processing to read the ultrasonic tank levels then was available using the ESP8266 alone.

This system has been in place working for a couple of years now. To be honest I do not recall much of the details about setting it up but I could attempt to answer any questions you may have As I have the code and the rough setup schematic available. I intended to eventually move the system to a PC board design as of now it is still mounted using a prototype board and jumper wires.

sask55, glad to know you are still alive!! This problem appears randomly but quite often.

The simplest solution is to program an auto reset every 10 days (or whatever). You could use a separate timer on your power line or do it programagically.

Ralph

Yes! I am still alive and still playing around with electronics and coding a bit. I don't get around to looking at the Nerkit site vary often any more. I am also glad to see that at least a few of the old regulars here at the nerdkit site are still around and may be looking in at the forums occasionally.

I still think it is a shame that much of the very valuable information that would be available in the Nerdkit forums is no very hard to locate. The nerdkit search engine no longer works as it once did.

I have intention to rebuild my tank monitoring system someday and a automated rest is one of the features I intend to include. I seam to have a habit of moving on to something else once I have a working version of a project. As it is now the various readings are transmitted to the Thingsspeek site once every three minutes. Automated resets could easily be cared out every day or even every hour with no interruption of data. It is just a mater of getting around to making the changes.

On another topic. I added a 4 axis (rotary) to my home designed and built CNC mill control system. I have cut a number of small gears for replacement parts for my lathe with good results. I am currently making some addition changes to the mill and the software to attempt a set of helix gears to replace the back gear of a lathe. I think it should work if I can manage to accomplish very fine control of three axis of movement at once. This nerdkit site is the reason I was able to accomplish any of the design for that project.

Darryl