Congrats! You've purchased your DIY Metar map kit and now you need to set it up so it connects to your local wifi network and illuminates airports in the correct order.
The kit contains:
- Raspberry Pi Zero 2W.
- Wiring Harness
- WS2811 LED Lights (50 ct)
- Power Cord
- 32 GB Micro SD Card + adaptor
Make sure you have a computer with an SD card reader to get started!
Important
The kit only works on 2.4Ghz Wifi networks. If you don't have a 2.4Ghz check your router's settings, often times you can enable one.
- Take the included micro-SD card and insert it into the SD reader in your computer using the SD card adaptor.
- This will mount as a drive called "bootfs":
- In this drive create a file called:
wpa_supplicant.conf. To do this open a file with a text editor such as TextEdit (Mac) or Notepad (Windows) and paste in the following content:
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1
network={
ssid="WIFI_NETWORK"
psk="WIFI_PASSWORD"
id_str="SOME_DESCRIPTIVE_NAME"
}
- Edit the lines
ssid=“WIFI_NETWORK”to match the name of your Wifi network andpsk=“WIFI_PASSWORD"to the password.
- Save this file to "bootfs" and name it
wpa_supplicant.conf.
In order for the lights to illuminate the correct colors, we need to add a file airports.txt to the SD card that contains a list of ICAO airport codes which correspond to the ordering of the LED's we're using for our map.
- First go to https://aviationweather.gov/data/metar/ and type in the airport codes you wish to get data from. This is to check that they're available via the API. For example, Merril Field looks like:
Important
If the airport can't be found on https://aviationweather.gov the LED won't illuminate.
- On the SD card there's a file called
airports.txt. This file contains a list of airport codes like so:
Tip
NULL just tells the raspberry pi to not light up the LED, useful extending the wiring between airports.
PASX
PAEN
NULL
NULL
NULL
PANC
PALH
PAMR
PAED
PABV
PAWS
PAAQ
NULL
NULL
PATO
NULL
NULL
PAWD
NULL
NULL
PFCB
NULL
NULL
NULL
NULL
PACV
NULL
NULL
PAVD
- Enter in the order of the airports you wish to illuminate. You can change this at any time in the same manner as above.
Now that you've got the Wifi information setup and the airport.txt file all set it's time to test the LED lights.
-
Eject the SD card from your computer and insert into the SD card port on the Raspberry Pi.
-
Plug in the LED lights like so:
- Plug in the power supply like so and flip the switch to power it on. You should see a small LED light illuminate on the Raspberry Pi.
If the LED's glow purple this means you aren't connected to the wifi:
If the LED's glow yellow this means it can't find airports.txt or the file isn't formatted correctly.
Email [email protected] for support.