After getting excited about the first project we made for the PiJuice (which was a portable Pi games console), we decided to go ahead and make a few more exciting projects. The next step for us was to make a Solar Weather Station that’s powered by a Raspberry Pi and PiJuice module.

With this project, we faced a few challenges such as making sure the case was weatherproof (a must have feature for us in the UK!) and a few other issues. Using the prototype PiJuice module that we had during the Kickstarter Campaign allowed us the efficiently manage the power from the solar panel.

For this project, we chose to add these sensors: humidity, temperature, and light levels. However, there was plenty of room inside of the case to place additional sensors. If you wanted to, you could measure a variety of gases too! One thing we might even experiment with is adding radiation and pollen sensors, which could be a great additional.

For this tutorial, we used a Raspberry Pi A+ as it doesn’t use much power compare to the other modules. We also set it up so data is sent via a GSM module as a text message to a smart phone.

Solar Panel and the Weather Station Module

We have the whole tutorial set up on the Instructables website which you can follow here!