EnviroPi Temp Monitor

After a couple hours of work, to my great delight and relative astonishment, the Adafruit MCP9808 sensor has been successfully connected to the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 WH computer. The contraption is actively measuring ambient temperatures once per second, and storing said data in a common, local CSV file.

I will run this experiment for roughly two or three weeks. Afterwards, I will export and visualize the information using D3; my favorite data graphing JavaScript library. In the meantime this "EnviroPi Temp Monitor" project needs to be clearly organized, including the addition of Python scripts and instructions on how to replicate.

To keep things interesting, I am dreaming up my next Hackaday.io project. But that is fun for another time. Let's stay (mostly) focused on what is already in front of us. There is still a bit more to do here.

Tonight I soldered header pins to the Adafruit sensor I am using for this project. I noticed the temperature on my Weller soldering iron varied quite a bit during the soldering process. But after cleaning the iron's tip, everything stabilized as expected.

What makes this soldering especially interesting and notable to me, is the fact tonight is my first time ever trying. And it was a success. The joints are solid, there are no solder bridges and I didn't use excessive material.

The next step is to test the sensor component's connectivity with my Raspberry Pi computer. If I am able to verify the two are communicating, I can write the software for collecting temperature readings. And get this project on its way in earnest.

As this is my first Hackaday.io project, it is also my first attempt at soldering. While I have already been using Raspberry Pi computers and the Python programming language for self-quantification, my experience with assembling electronics is relatively limited. I have built numerous desktop PCs, but only a few devices weighing less than a pound or two.

Today I purchased the equipment needed to solder. Once the hardware arrives, I will begin this journey by connecting header pins to the Adafruit MCP9808 temperature sensor. From there, I will be using jumper cables to connect said sensor to a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 WH. At which point I will write a program to have this apparatus collect temperature data every few seconds, adding those measurements to a growing CSV file. Which will later be visualized using the D3 JavaScript library.

I will update this project again in the near future when there is more to share.