Our basic idea was to parse live wind data from Holfuy weather stations and return a green or red light if the wind is flyable or not at our local paragliding site. We use a normal lamp socket from IKEA and a special lightbulb system that can change color.
The code is written in JavaScript and can be run on most operating systems. We use a cheap Raspberry Pi in the following example.
- Raspberry Pi 2 model B https://www.komplett.se/raspberry-pi-2-model-b/836890
- MiLight lightbulb http://www.ebay.com/itm/151585053073 . MiLight wifi controller http://www.ebay.com/itm/321496088479
- Lamp with an E14 socket. http://www.ikea.com/se/sv/catalog/products/90242189/
- MicroSD card (4GB or bigger)
- Micro USB cable for power to the Raspberry
- Ethernet cable
- Optional: Plastic case for the Raspberry http://www.ebay.com/itm/281657279473
Follow the instructions on how to write the raspian disk image to your SD-card. Boot your Raspberry and make sure it is connected to the Internet. You don't need a monitor and keyboard connected to the raspberry to do this. You can find plenty of guides on the Internet. Here is a good source: http://www.robertawood.com/blog/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-initial-setup-headless-no-monitor-or-keyboard-needed.html
Once the Raspberry is installed, ssh to your internet connected Pi and install the following packages: sudo apt-get install npm curl -sLS https://apt.adafruit.com/add | sudo bash sudo apt-get install node sudo apt-get install git
Make sure that you are in a suitable catalog i.e. cd /home/pi Install our FlyLight software with the following command: sudo git clone https://github.com/bofh69/FlyLight.git
Edit the config file and add your weather station(s). sudo nano /home/pi/FlyLight/config.json Save the file. You can now check if the server is working by running: node /home/pi/FlyLight/server.js You will find that node is missing some modules. Install the missing modules one at the time. Replace xxxxxx with the module missing. sudo npm install xxxxxx
If you want to make sure that the server is booting automatically when you reboot your Raspberry, add this line to your /etc/rc.local file. su pi -c 'node /home/pi/FlyLight/server.js < /dev/null &'
The final step is to setup the MiLight LED-lamp and WiFi bridge. Follow the instructions in this document:http://www.limitlessled.com/download/LimitlessLED_Wifi_Bridge_v4_Instructions_March2014.pdf
Our software will use the broadcast address to communicate with the WiFi bridge instead of a specific IP-address. This is good if your Raspberry and bridge are connected to the same network. You can specify a static address in config.json but there is no easy way to give the WiFi bridge a static address. One way to solve this is if you have a home router that can give out a "static" DHCP address based on MAC-address. This is one way to make sure that the WiFi bridge will end up with the same IP-address after a reboot.
A prebuilt image can be downloaded from: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aj4itS-J3XxahVG5TJr-qc3OnYRN
A new feature is that we have a web interface to config the wind settings. Steer your browser to http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:3000 Replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with your IP-address to the Raspberry.
Happy flying and let the green light shine bright :)