Who here builds their own sensors (CHAT)

There are some good videos on YouTube for soldering for beginners.

I have watched a few of those too but turning it into a reality is harder than it looks it’s just going too take more practice

Buy a piece of vero board and a pack restistors for less than £5 and just start soldering them. Desolder too much if you wish. Good Practice for little-known money. Good iron / tip, sucker and soldier is allowing you need. :slight_smile:

Trying to relive this thread as I was about to open a similar one.

I have built a solar powered weather station using the BME280, a NodeMCU ESP8266 in combination with the TP4056 battery charger in between the solar panel and a CR18650 battery.
Also I have a step up voltage regulator to give the NodeMCU 5V.

What I struggle the most with is to find a nice casing. Right now I use this:
https://www.screwfix.de/aufputz-feuchtraum-abzweigdose.html?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=Shopping&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=Cj0KCQiA28nfBRCDARIsANc5BFAOwVlZEtBX4f8V6AP4i3kJpmnDA80_Jbwnw6hx-vI36Zn9WBlmZxcaApp9EALw_wcB

It is doing the job, but not a thing of beauty and as I am building an indoor sensor I’m looking for some alternatives - maybe even instead of a wall plug?

Oh and of course it’s all MQTT - I couldn’t believe how quick and easy that was up and running.

I also have a rain sensor, but that’s constantly killing it’s battery despite waking up only all 5 min and using wifi only once every hour.

Cases seem to come in four types as far as I’ve seen in my limited experience.

  1. Cases? We don’t need no stinking cases!

Bare wires and boards, maybe mounted to a piece of wood or card board.

  1. Generic plastic box which is what you are using. A big advantage of that is these tend to be waterproof which is important in a weather station.

  2. 3D printed cases. Note that you don’t have to own a 3D printer for something like this. There are many services like Shapeways that lets you pay to have someone else 3D print your case.

  3. Hollowed out wood. This is one of my favorites but it’s hard to do if you don’t have access to a band saw and drill press. See https://makezine.com/projects/hollow-2x4-project-enclosure/. It doesn’t have to be a 2x4. You can build up a block of wood to hollow out or build a box using any type of wood.

  4. Found boxes and stuff. Just about anything that has a hollow inside that can be closed up can become a case.

I personally prefer the last two because you end up with something that looks unique. But if I were to make a weather station, I’d probably stick with what you are already using to take advantage of it’s weather resistance.

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How about LEGO sensors :slight_smile:

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Oh quite some nice ideas! I like the wooden ones (and it’s definitely woman-compatible)!

The lego version is inspiring, too. Actually, I still have some LEGO stuff around. Will see what that’ll make!

A few days ago I made a small device for monitoring water level in a bucket. The bucket is used by my aircondition for condensation water, and I am now working on automating the aircondition unit. With the water level sensor, I am able to stop the aircondition before water overflows.

The device is pretty simple, it is only a Wemos D1 mini and an HC-SR04 based ultrasonic distance sensor, which is mouned on a 3D printed bracket with hot glue. The device can then easy be removed from the bucket when it needs to be emptied.

Data is send back to openhab over MQTT.

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Bathrooms
Same flow meters and temp meters on all the plumbing in the bathrooms to monitor and log that.

Can you share your design for your bathroom flow sensors? I am interested in a building some.

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