How to Build a WeatherRack3 No Moving Parts Weather Station SwitchDoc Labs is building a new weather station and software with the WeatherRack3, a new generation no-moving parts 7 in 1 sensor.   We are building a solar powered box around the WeatherRack3 that will keep the sensor running for long periods of time (even with out sun – love those large capacity lead acid battery).   It’s a similar solar power system to SolarMAX2 (designed to run Raspberry Pi 4B systems) but with a much simpler controller because we don’t need nearly as much power as the Raspberry Pi 4B takes (don’t forg ..read more

WeatherRack3 Data Formats SwitchDoc Labs is building a new weather station and software with the WeatherRack3, a new generation no-moving parts 7 in 1 sensor.   We are building a solar powered box around the WeatherRack3 that will keep the sensor running for long periods of time (even with out sun – love those large capacity lead acid battery).   It’s a similar solar power system to SolarMAX2 (designed to run Raspberry Pi 4B systems) but with a much simpler controller because we don’t need nearly as much power as the Raspberry Pi 4B takes (don’t forget the high startup current!). &nb ..read more

SmartGarden3 Frequently Asked Questions We have been collecting the questions that people have been asking about the SmartGarden3 and are summarizing the answers here: You can find the SmartGarden3 here and the Hydroponics SmartGarden3 here. What is the SmartGarden3? SmartGarden3 supports hydroponics and you can order a compatible hydroponics kit ! Smart Garden 3 is a great product for learning about the Raspberry Pi and the ESP32! Highly expandable!   You can have your Raspberry Pi Base Unit inside your house and have multiple wireless control units and up to 16 Bluetooth Wireles ..read more

SolarMAX2 – Solar Power for your Raspberry Pi4B! 1/2 the cost of our previous solar controller! Compatible with SkyWeather2 and WeatherSense.  Kickstarter now Live ​ ​See The Product Page here!​ Tired of building solar power projects that just don’t generate enough power to cover your cloudy days? Fed up with building systems that end up destroying your Raspberry Pi SD Card? Do you keep trying systems that don’t give you the solar power data you crave? SolarMAX2 is a brand new design with open source software that costs 1/2 as much as the last version and improves the performance dram ..read more

What are in SolarMAX2 Solar Data Packets? This is an article showing what is being sent out by 433MHz radio from the SwitchDoc Labs SolarMAX2 solar power system and data collector. What is SolarMAX2? Most Raspberry Pi solar power systems shown on Instructables and other forums are seriously underpowered.  If you are building projects that require a significantly larger amount of power than small solar cells can provide, the SolarMAX2 is for you.   Open Source Software puts you in control.   We use SolarMAX2 in our SkyWeather2 projects. NO SOLDERING!   Sol ..read more

Tutorial: Solar Power – Sizing your Solar Panels for the Raspberry Pi Sizing Your Solar Power System One of the first things that comes up in a solar powered design is how to design the power system. The three main questions to be asked and answered are: How much power do I need? How many solar panels do I need? What size battery do I need? The first thing you need to do when designing a solar powered system is to determine the power requirements for your solar powered design. Our criteria is that we want the SkyWeather2 Raspberry Pi to run all day and during the night. But we want the syste ..read more

Adding More Solar Panels to SkyCam and WeatherSense Sensors Sometimes your solar powered sensors are in less than an ideal position or location to keep your batteries fully charged by the solar power system.    A cloudy climate (and remember that solar panels will still generate power on cloudy days, but not nearly as much) or a less than ideal position that you are mounting your sensor.   If you find yourself in such a situation, it is easy to add additional solar panels to your system.    This is a tutorial for adding additional solar panels to SkyCam and other Weath ..read more

Tutorial for Upgrading SkyWeather2 – The Dow Hurst Average Editors Note:   Dow has done it again!  Here he shows us how to update SkyWeather2 on the Raspberry Pi.  He is an active participant on forum.switchdoc.com and has been a huge help to all levels of users!   I’ve noticed in the forum that several people have had trouble figuring out how to upgrade the SkyWeather2 software that came with their system. I culled through the forums to base the following instructions on my own and others experience in successful upgrades. Plus, with all the work SwitchDoc Labs is putting ..read more

What are WeatherSense Sensors? WeatherSense is an open source protocol and software that allows weather and environmental instruments communicate with the Raspberry Pi, ESP32 and Arduino based computers.  You have ALL the software source code available to learn how these devices work and to make your own modification.   A great way to learn and develop your own abilities. The WeatherSense Sensors SwitchDoc Labs has developed a set of WeatherSense compatible sensors and has several others in development.    The current list of supported sensors are: WeatherSense WeatherRac ..read more

Editors Note:   We are pleased to publish this excellent article by David Sedik describing his daughters high school senior project using the SwitchDoc Labs Smart Garden System V2.   This was a pleasure to read and understand their project. Testing the Effect of Irrigation Scheduling on Green Onion Yields Using the Smart Garden System Background I worked for 20 years in the UN focusing on agricultural policy and food security. During my career, my family lived with me in various countries, first in Europe and then the Middle East. While the European countries where we lived were som ..read more