WeatherFlow PiConsole - Archive

No, the log file should be generated automatically when you run the console using wfpiconsole start.

Does it go blank before you enter you station and device IDs? In your wfpiconsole folder can you see a wfpiconsole.ini file?

Peter

Havenā€™t you thought of using an e-paper screen instead of the RAspberry LCD screen?

I came across an interesting project
: GitHub - G6EJD/ESP32-e-Paper-Weather-Display: An ESP32 and 2.9", 4.2" or 7.5" ePaper Display reads Weather Underground data via their API and then displays the weather

I am trying to adapt the program to raspberry but my skills are very limited!

The Wind Speed / Direction section looks very cool. Thats a good idea to improve the Pi Console. Another nice section to add to the Pi Console could be the WiFi signal strength (not sure if its included in the current WF API) and the battery exposed in the main screen.

I really love the way Pi Console was designed. A freindly / clean interface with nice colorsā€¦

Screen Shot 2021-01-19 at 2.56.42 PM Screen Shot 2021-01-19 at 2.57.09 PM

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I agree that the e-ink screens look good, but this is very unlikely to happen. Converting the PiConsole to run on an e-ink screen is basically a brand new project, a with complete re-write of the code required. Sorry!

As far as I am aware this is not exposed in the public facing API. Would be nice to add though

I hope WF expose via API HUB WiFi signal strength and Station to HUB 900 MHz signal level at some point.

This is my attempt at a display
I donā€™t know Python so itā€™s all written in Basic - 19inch hdmi monitor the photo isnā€™t brilliant but it looks better irl

The thing folks have to remember is that all these ePaper dashboard variants like the one shown use an arduino to drive the display, so itā€™s not like just programming natively in python or javascript on a raspi. Itā€™s quite a different beast.

That said, you could likely fake the color+fonts realistically with a CSS setup for a traditional screen.

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ok - I have some time this week to fiddle with this again.

I have raspbian-lite (not the desktop) on a clean SD card and have installed wfpiconsole and gotten through the prompts for API keys and Station info just fine. The display doesnā€™t start because there isnā€™t one. Itā€™s a headless runlevel-3 os.

Some questions:

  • do I need to redo this with a desktop os in runlevel-5 ?
  • do I need a monitor attached for the console to start ?

Where I get uncertain above is the VNC reference. If the VM is light (runlevel-3) how does the console attach to a nonexistent display ?

Maybe the guidance in this thread will get things going - RPi4B with Buster - VNC not working.... - Raspberry Pi Forums

I have a problem with my display, at times random things will display as blank and the wind direction compass display only for about a sec before it dissapear for a while and come back and disappears.
At times the buttons may disappear or the button may take a while to open aka menu

I orginal thought my raspberry pi had conflicting software so formated my sd card install the latest raspberry pi with desktop OS and made sure itā€™s all upto date before installing the console everything but it didnā€™t fix it

I have raspberry pi 3B
Iā€™ve check my pi CPU, ram and it looks like itā€™s not under anyload

nothing weird, and rather simple to solve, try this solution. Worked for me

https://community.tempest.earth/t/weatherflow-piconsole/1933/617?u=eric

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Thanks for that.
I change the memory to 128 which fix most things but the wind gauge was flickering but less than before.
I then change it to 256 and so far so good

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Youā€™ve done more exploring than me for this specific type of setup, but my feeling is that:

a) you need to be using an os in runlevel-5 (i.e. you need to have the desktop installed). You can flash the SD card again, or you can try installing it in-place: GUIDE: Raspbian Lite with RPD/LXDE/XFCE/MATE/i3/Openbox/X11 GUI - Raspberry Pi Forums. I tried that once and it seemed to work.

b) you donā€™t have to have a screen attached, but the desktop does have to be loaded into memory. I think you can do this by setting a screen resolution in raspi-config or there are some instructions at the bottom of the VNC page for setting up a virtual desktop: Raspberry Pi Documentation - Remote access. I havenā€™t tried this though.

Iā€™m curious if anyone can tell me how to make the background a true black so that there is a better contrast ration between background and the text/images.
After installing @stevecody 's big temp panel it appears that big temp is using a true black background that is easy to contrast against the numbers whereas everything else is slightly washed out.

or is there a way to remove the border from the other panel images? might just be too much white

Where can I find details of the Big Temp panelā€¦??
it looks greatā€¦!!

To make this change youā€™ll need to edit line 88 and 109 of kvlang/panelLayout.kv to read rgba: utils.rgba('000000ff').

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You can find it here:

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Thanks Peter. Sooo much easier to read. You should consider making this default.

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Brilliantā€¦!!
Had a few minor hiccups (all user error) but have made both changes successfully.
Once Weather Flow have sorted out an internal temperature sensor - it would be great to add a large display below the BigTemp indication, but on the same panel.
Perhaps in light blue to easily pick which is which.

Both the change to a darker background & the BigTemp panel are great improvements.

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