Attic Installation Power

My ´under the roof´ installation.

Typically on summer’s day I do have 35°C (95°F) or more in my attic room, the home of my Raspberry Pi installation, located in the southern part of Germany.

Specially for fire protection I have made this:
The power connection, the power supply & Raspberry Pi are placed inside of a large metal box.

Cooling:
The interior space of the metal box is cooled by an axial-fan, powered by 12V from a solar panel. This panel is placed behind the roof window and working fine when needed on hot summer days:-)
The CPU is cooled by double CPU cooling fan (GPIO-controlled).
The temp is dropped more than 15°C (60°F) after installation.

Network:
-stand alone solution (not yet connected to Flightaware)
-static IP, LAN connection (no WLAN! )
-macmini server running downstairs 7/24 with mySQL database and ´ac_counter.php´-script from TomMuc.

Statistic:
max. range ~350 km (220 miles)
aircraft seen with position ~80
tracks/hour ~600
logged flights ~3.000 a day (by php- script)

Last but not least:
Collinear-antenna placed outside on top of the SAT dish. 255m (836 ft) above msn (mean see level)

Note: the php script by TomMuc is a great enrichment! and I’m happy with my installation!!

Thanks for the feedback! For the long USB cable, I’m running that right now (10m cable). 10m is the longest USB can support, and you need to buy an ‘active USB cable’ to get that distance. My experience setting this up showed me that the Pi doesn’t always provide enough power to be able to power the cable properly so I would recommend buying a small USB hub that plugs into the wall. You plug the Pi into that hub with a short cable, and then connect the the antenna’s longer USB cable, and that seems to do the trick. (Keep the hub close to the Pi). My Pi is in an air-conditioned room upstairs, and the USB cable runs through the attic to the roof through a roof vent.

I think my final solution for this is going to be to buy a small plastic box similar to this https://www.target.com/p/decorative-basket-black-room-essentials-153/-/A-51466655 and turn it upside down. I hope this will keep the direct sun off the SDR on the roof but still allow airflow. That way, I can easily stick the antenna out the side, but the sun won’t be beating down on the SDR. And of course I’ll weatherproof the SDR with some electrical tape. Probably all a terrible idea, but we’ll see :slight_smile:

Thanks for the feedback!

Po_E_48_V

AF-compliant:

Injector TP-Link TL-PoE150S
amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001PS9E5I

Splitter TP-Link TL-PoE10R
amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003CFATQK

Injector User Guide / Specs:
static.tp-link.com/resources/doc … _Guide.pdf

Splitter User Guide / Specs:
static.tp-link.com/resources/doc … _Guide.pdf

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This is a related thread. May help.

Antenna in attic, pi in basement?