Hi All

Can anyone recommend a cloud cover light sensor, that would output data either using UART or i2c?

 

What kind of data? How much of the sky?

ak

 

VEML7700 Ambient Light Sensor Module

GY-2561 Infrared Sensor TSL2561 I think IR is good.

 

Thanks

I will check them out. If this were to be kept in an enclosure, would you know if there is any sort of protected enclosure we could use? I wouldn't want to use make unnecessary holes and let rain get in

 

I think that the TS needs to supply a lot more details to stimulate useful suggestions.

 

For aviation use, cloud cover is normally measured in eighths of the sky, e.g. is expressed as 3/8. Is that what you have in mind?

 

Ambient light is orthogonal to cloud cover. A cloud cover sensor in practice is a compound sensor using a ceilometer (laser rangefinder checking the cloud base height), infrared sensors, and a camera—along with the program needed to integrate the data from all three.

So, if you want a meaningful cloud cover metric, you are most likely best off using METAR reports that you can get free using the aviationweather.gov API. Metar reports include cloud cover information. The raw METAR report looks like this:

KORD 241251Z 27019G27KT 10SM OVC030 01/M06 A2974 RMK AO2 PK WND 28034/1225 SLP075 T00111056​

The sixth group is the sky conditions which translates roughly to oktas, the standard 1/8 of sky coverage for aviation and others. The three letter code is the condition (overcast in this report) and the 030 is the ceiling in hundreds of feet AGL (Above Ground Level), so 3000‘ in this case.

You can access the report with the a simple URL:

https://aviationweather.gov/api/data/metar?ids=KORD&format=raw
​

You can also request a report in JSON format.

​

 

Based on that additional information provided in posts #6 and #7, it is clear to me that the TS needs to describe exactly what sort of "cloud cover" they are wanting to know about.
My new suggestion is "a video camera feeding a computer running custom software."