Year-round solar water temperature sensor

cross-posted from: slrpnk.net/post/488623

A small solar power system to run a LoRa water temperature sensor year round. Here’s some pretty graphs of the data:

https://www.kaedon.net/mitigomish/watertemp

This is a project that’s been running for almost 2 years now. Everything is still working with very little down time! The solar power system is way overpowered for what it’s doing, but I wanted to make sure it works through the dark winters.

The temperature sensor is at the bottom of a bucket in the ground, because the water level gets pretty low in the winter and I didn’t want the ice to destroy the temperature sensor when it drifts.

Any thoughts or suggestions for improvements are welcome!