Weather Thingy

Displays current DarkSky weather to 32x16 RGB LED Grid

Setup

• get a free Dark Sky API key
• add network name and password between the ** symbols, removing the ** symbols
• flash SD card to full raspian using PiBakery and recipe.xml
• make sure the Pi has an uninterrupted power supply the first time it boots up, so it can install and set up everything it needs to, then you can ssh [email protected], password will be blueberry unless you change it
• connect the pi to the MPC1073, connect the MPC1073 to the HUB75 LED matrix
• schedule cronjob to get weather every two minutes, and render upon boot

Pi

@reboot /home/pi/weather-reporter/pi/show_weather.sh >> /home/pi/weather-reporter/log

Server

* * * * * /home/bd/weather-reporter/server/update_display.sh >> /home/bd/log

BOM

• Raspberry Pi or Pi Zero with Hammer Header Male Connector, and power supply
• MPC1073 and CR1220 battery
• 16+ GB SD card, and card reader / writer
• 32x16 LED matrix with ribbon and 5 Volt 2 Amp power supply
• Female DC Power adapter - 2.1mm jack to screw terminal block to go in back of the LED Matrix

Troubleshooting

• curl https://api.darksky.net/forecast/<API_KEY>/37.8267,-122.4233
• notice what happens on the grid when sudo ping -f -s 30000 weatherpi.local
• wait at least 2 minutes after powering your pi with the LED display for the weather to appear
• after plugging in a pi with a freshly baked flash card, wait at least 5 minutes

Thank You

• Henner Zeller for sharing your sample code
• Ari Zilnik for helping with soldering and graphics
• Janice Shiu for thinking of a cool name
• Powered by Dark Sky