Franklin Dattein

Nice video of some friends jumping a pier, during a competition, in Atlântida beach, one of my favorite kite spots.

Continuing in the Anemometer project, I guess I found the cheapest way to send data over the GPRS network.

The SSerial2Mobile project is a library for Arduino, to stablish a serial connection with a mobile phone.
The project web site says that they could connect with a cheap Motorola C168i.

It costs around U$27,00 plus shipping on Ebay.
I bought an used one for U$14,00 (plus U$13,00 of the shipping)

It is pretty cheap compared to the EUR$77,00 GPRS Shield for Arduino from Libelium.

In my last post about the Anemometer project I did mention that the LaCrosse station could be integrated in Arduino, but it would require a complex reverse engineering.

Looks like Jonathan Oxfer and his friend Marc Alexander have already implemented it. Check it out:

http://www.practicalarduino.com/news/id/171

I have previously discarded the option to integrate LaCrosse stations in my projet, due to its total cost. However, it is now back on the plan.
I still consider that this station is too expensive when compared to a DIY version, but the truth is that many people are currently using them. Altough, many are unhappy, due to the complex infrastructure needed to transmit data over the internet, as explained in the previous post.
By running a parallel project to integrate LaCrosse stations with Arduino, I could provide this “extensions” to these guys in a kind of partnership.
I would give them the ability to measure wind without their expensive computers and they would give me permission to use the anemometer measurements in my web-site.

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Summary
This project consists of the construction of an anemometer able to transmit the wind speed and direction over a GPRS network. The objective is to plug the cheapest cellphone and anemometer sensor into an Arduino.

Motivation
I have an on-line store to sell kitesurfing equipment and the most attractive page is the one that shows the wind speed for the main kitesurfing spots.
In addition, I have been playing with Arduino and remote device monitoring in the past few months just for fun and learning, so this project is pure fun and profit.

The problem
Weather monitoring is not an innovation. It is possible to buy a LaCrosse Weather Station for U$110,00 on Ebay. These stations are wireless and can be connected to a PC, which can easily transmit the wind speed through the web.
So, why do you want to build a new one from scratch?

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Sunday evening, 16°C, West wind between 18 e 20 knots, perfect conditions for kitesurfing
Some friends and I went to Capão da Canoa beach, in one of its ponds, to enjoy the flat water.

Some more pictures from my trip to Hawaii. This time some kiteboarding photos. Enjoy