Open originalfoo opened 7 years ago
Could do it manually by installing a small physical compass on the device. Alternatively, build a motor in to the base unit and have the device auto-orient to North on first use (battery will be full change due to initial power-up while doing config via USB).
Motors will affect reading from magnetometer - see #10
Magnetism from motors in base unit (ground-facing module) would adversely affect sensors in that part of the array.
Compass component would add cost and be difficult to see. Better approach might be to use the neopixel ring to indicate orientation guidance?
Note: In terms of "North", what we specifically mean is "whatever North means in the software that calculates where the sun is".
When mounted on a ship, orientation is somewhat pointless.
Depending on which screen is fitted to the sensor, visibility of sensor elements could be obscured.
The device needs to know which way (magnetic) North is - is a compass in an IMU sufficient for this task or should installation instructions provide guidance of how to orient the device?