Why build a weather station when you can buy one with adequate features in the $100 range? If you get no satisfaction out of building things and just want weather information, then you should buy one. But some of us enjoy building things (some of us even need to build things), and we often design better systems than what’s on the market. I believe the well-designed weather station components that I’ll describe in this article will provide you with years of trouble-free service. That can’t be said of some of the plastic-bodied weather station systems on the market.

I described a weather station project back in September 2000 (“A Low-Cost Weather Station,” Circuit Cellar 122). With the exception of its electronic rain gauge, the system has functioned well since I first installed it. Even so, I recently upgraded the system and corrected some of its mechanical shortcomings with my newly acquired metalworking machines. In this article, I’ll explain exactly what I did.