As I noted this project log is starting reasonably far into the actual project itself. If you want to see my approach and how I got to here, I will answer things in the discussion section but there is little sense in blogging it. On my Gamma Scintillation project I will be blogging a lot of the methods that got me to today on this project, so there is no need to repeat them here.

This project got pushed into the "holding box" (a literal box) when my life situation changed this summer. The restart on this now will begin with an inventory of what is in that box and what has been prototype vs what needs to be done.

In general I had the Arduino base unit working and talking successfully to a temperature/humidity sensor and tested that over a long-ish distance piece of Cat5e between the Arduino and the sensor. My reasoning was to ensure I could read data for both "inside" and "outside" the unit. Those terms are a bit arbitrary because the three application scenarios I have here are:

1. Generic accuracy indoor/outdoor measurement for energy consumption analyses.
2. High accuracy outdoor weather/climate station. In that case "inside" would be in the case holding the electronics and the "outside" would be the actual measurement being performed inside of a Stephenson Screen a couple of feet away. My plan is to house the electronics and such separately from the real measurement sensors to minimize any localized self-heating, etc.
3. Flight ready balloon launch package. In this case "inside" is the interior of the payload and "outside" is the atmosphere around the payload/balloon. It is important on balloon flights that we minimize the change to the electronics inside the payload. We use repurposed Styrofoam chests to help moderate the temperature changes from launch, through flight, to recovery. Here in the Texas Gulf Coast it is not unusual for launch to occur at 90F (32C), pass through the stratosphere at -65C (-85F), increase at upper altitudes to -20C (-4F), and then reverse back through to 90F at landing. COTS hardware could not stand that if it weren't for some reduction in the swing along with the short-ish (± 5 hrs) time of exposure.

I also remember having the barometric sensor working as well as the high accuracy temperature sensor. Where things stopped was just as I was beginning to put multiple sensors on the data bus simultaneously.

I had done a bit of experimenting with the pulse output of anemometers and wind direction indicators. With that I began gathering scientific research on how to calculate an anemometer's relationship with true wind speed. My hardware prototyping was hindered by cable and connector issues with my existing anemometer setup, along with some very calm days that gave me zero output.

At this point I will restart by getting out the project box and doing some photography of what bits I have.