Author Archives: jimhannon

Testing Paint for Solar Heating

Posted on June 8, 2020

An upcoming project has an enclosure for electronics that is exposed to sunlight. I wanted to see if silver or white color paint was better at reducing the solar heating in the enclosure. I picked 5 different spray paints to … Continue reading →

Posted in Amateur Science, Astronomy, environmental monotoring | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Air Quality Sensor

Posted on July 18, 2019

An air quality sensor (dust sensor) has been on my todo list for a while. There are a number of sensor modules on the market for the DIYer but all that I had seen seemed to not be suited for … Continue reading →

Posted in Amateur Science, citizen science, Electronics, environmental monotoring, Imbedded Software, Nature, Software | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Telescope Mount Adapter

Posted on June 25, 2019

The University of Iowa donated the Rigel robotic telescope to the Cedar Amateur Astronomers. Plans are to install this telescope in one of the domes at the observatory. To mount the scope an adapter is needed to connect the scope … Continue reading →

Posted in Amateur Science, Astronomy, Machine Shop, Metal Working, welding | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Biochar Study

Posted on April 18, 2019

This is a  citizen science activity that I spotted on Scistarter. I keep an eye on the citizen science projects on Scistarter and this one interested me. Scistarter lists a lot of citizen science projects. I had seen a lot … Continue reading →

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Soil Temperature Probe

Posted on April 13, 2019

A soil temperature probe has been on my todo list for a while. So I decided to build one now along with a number of other improvements, and repairs to my weather station. The soil temperature at four inch depth … Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics, environmental monotoring, Imbedded Software, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Rain Sensor

Posted on January 1, 2019

I thought it would be interesting to add a rain sensor to my tipping bucket rain gauge. Because it take time for the bucket to fill and does not always tip right when it stops raining a sensor that detects … Continue reading →

Posted in Amateur Science, Astronomy, DIY, Electronics, environmental monotoring, Imbedded Software, Nature, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Barn Door Star Tracker

Posted on October 21, 2018

I wanted to take some star pictures with my DSLR and decided a barn door style star tracker would be a fun project to build. Early versions were nothing more than two boards connected by a hinge with a screw … Continue reading →

Posted in Amateur Science, Astronomy, DIY, Electronics, Imbedded Software, Photography, Software | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Building A Sand Muller

Posted on May 28, 2018

To do sand casting a muller is almost a necessity. It is difficult to mix up foundry sand either green sand or oil bonded sand without a muller. I have been thinking about how to build a muller for some … Continue reading →

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UVA UVB Sensor

Posted on March 1, 2018

I have a commercial UV Index sensor running but I found an IC sensor chip that would measure UVA and UVB separately and thought it would be interesting to see how the two UV bands varied with respect to each … Continue reading →

Posted in Amateur Science, DIY, Electronics, environmental monotoring, Imbedded Software, Nature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

IoT Rain Gauge

Posted on February 2, 2018

On thing that is missing from my weather station is automatic reporting of rain fall. I have a manually read CoCoRaHS rain gauge which is more accurate than say a tipping bucket gauge but I thought it would be nice … Continue reading →

Posted in Alternate Energy, Amateur Science, Electronics, environmental monotoring, Nature, Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments