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Testing your Station Before Deployment

Before you place all of your sensors into their various housing, it is important to test whether or not you are receiving data.

Here are the steps to do that most effectively:

  1. Configure your wifi modem (if you are using a sim card setup)
  2. Plug the modem into your power source and check whether or not you have a signal.
  3. Unplug the modem and plug in your microcontroller, without any sensors attached. When connected to power, but not to sensors, it will blink red.
  4. Unplug the microcontroller from the power source and attach all your sensors with the appropriate cables. See the Microcontroller, Sensor, and Power Connections table below for details.
  5. Make sure all Grove and Qwiic connectors are properly pushed into place as this can cause issues down the line.
  6. Without plugging in the modem, connect your microcontroller, with sensors attached, to the power source. If it flashes blue, you're clear to proceed.
  7. Unplug the microcontroller, plug in the modem, wait a few seconds for your modem to connect, and plug in your microcontroller.
  8. Wait a few minutes and then check your data portal to see if you are receiving data. If so, you are good assemble the station.

Microcontroller, Sensor, and Power Connections

Connecting Items Item 1 Image Wire Item 2 Image Details
Qwiic MultiPort to BME680 Qwiic MultiPort 100mm Qwiic Wire100mm qwiic to qwiic wire BME680
Qwiic MultiPort to Air Quality Sensor Qwiic MultiPort 200mm Qwiic Wire200mm qwiic to qwiic wire Air Quality Sensor
Qwiic MultiPort to UV Sensor Qwiic MultiPort 500mm Qwiic Wire500mm qwiic to qwiic wire UV Sensor
Qwiic Multiport to Microcontroller Qwiic MultiPort Qwiic to male GPIO wireqwiic to male GPIO wire Microcontroller Microcontroller wiringTo integrate Qwiic, attach a GPIO to qwiic jumper on ground, 5v, pin 21, and pin 25 of the microcontroller. That is yellow, blue, red, black from top to bottom on the right.
Microcontroller to Rain Gauge Microcontroller Grove to female GPIO wiregrove to female GPIO wire Rain Gauge Rain Gauge WiringUnscrew the base from the rain gauge. Connect the female GPIO wires as indicated. Red (5v, top left), Black(ground, bottom left), Yellow (Input, 2nd from top left), White (Output, 3rd from bottom left).
Microcontroller to Power Microcontroller USB-C to any power source Power Source

Wiring Diagram

wiring diagram