Personal Weather Station - Suggestions?

[dragoneggs]

I really haven't had any issues with WU other than I'm not all that impressed with the smartphone app (on my phone the app seems to get stuck and I have to kill it fairly often; also, can't look at data). From a web browser it's good.

Well I just checked WU and my PWS is 'reporting' now. Sure is bugging me why it is sometimes online and sometimes off. :confused3: That's why I resorted back to Ambient website and app.

Crap went to look at it again as we speak, to get the address to send to you and it's not reporting again. :mur: I have some kind of intermittent transmission problem with WU.

I did confirm that my WS2902 does measure in 0.01in increments on Ambient.net website.

 

[DieselBound]

Likely your Internet connection and not the weather hosting site. I'm battling a similar problem with something unrelated to weather equipment and know how frustrating it cane be: on-board wifi chip doesn't play well with my generic software drivers (linux); periodically locks up, requiring me to reboot; when I get a chance I'll be disabling that on-board chip and switching over to a USB device that's got a hardware chip that plays well with the software drivers.

Wifi stuff is sensitive to a lot of things. Ironically (in the sense that we're talking about weather devices), weather can cause problems. And then there's one's Internet service provider's equipment/lines: possible bad connections can cause a lot of dropped packets.

 

[dragoneggs]

Here isa pic of my console. Showing 0.02in rain accumulation today.

 

[DieselBound]

Ha ha! I can say that I have zero rain for the day! Not very often that I can say that during this time of year :laughing: (might have to arm-wrestle you as to which one of us gets more annual rain!)

The total precip (whether hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly) is, according to Ambient, reportable down to 0.01". For me it's the Rate (which is an extrapolation out to per-hour) that's seemingly odd. In the setup you should be able to set the rain reporting to instantaneous/rate. It's this value that is claimed by Ambient to be reportable down to 0.06 (it's stating hourly rate, meaning current 10 minute window times 6 window slices for the hour). On the 2902A I've seen the rate down to 0.05, and on the 1001 I've only seen (from three different reporting sensors) down to 0.07.

 

[jcummins]

I've thought of getting a PWS and reporting via weather underground....but that website has gone to crap, and from what little I've read it's because it was bought out by the weather channel. Now I see this....End of Service for the Weather Underground API | The WeatherAPI Community Customer Community

Those closer to this....what's the true story on this?

 

[DieselBound]

Sounds like they're just dumping their support for developers. Perhaps looking to control access through their own software bits only, which, it would seem, is likely a move toward a longer-term goal of some sort of paid subscription (maybe). Lots of weather station packages are bundling up with subscriber-based services (requiring some sort of extra cost, monthly, yearly or whatever). Maintaining servers (data storage) ain't cheap. This is one of the reasons why I drug my feet in letting go of my old La Crosse system (I could have, if wanted to, publish my own data off a personal server): my Ambient can only upload to one of the preset weather server services, no ability to provide a live data feed to a local server.

I maintain a server for another household function and can assure folks that it takes some bit of work to do so. It's all a trade-off: somewhere along the line you're going to pay; I prefer to minimize how it's dictated, in which case I'm more prone to do things myself.

 

[dragoneggs]

I've thought of getting a PWS and reporting via weather underground....but that website has gone to crap, and from what little I've read it's because it was bought out by the weather channel. Now I see this....End of Service for the Weather Underground API | The WeatherAPI Community Customer Community

Those closer to this....what's the true story on this?

JC, thanks for posting this... I was wondering why I was having so much trouble with underground. I just switched to PWS a couple days ago and already like it quite a bit more.

Here is the link to my PWS if you are interested...

PWS - Station Observations for KWASEABE23

 

[dnw64]

Our house came with a weather station, which was really cool since I've always wanted one. But, it wasn't working - the transmitter wasn't transmitting. A neighbor who had done some work around the place said he thought the solar panel wasn't recharging it*, as he had to keep replacing the battery. So I hadn't done anything about it.

Posts such as this one make me want to buy one.

Then as I was reading down through I thought I recognized the name of the one I have, so I checked it out. Yes, I have a Davis Vantage Pro 2. So I guess I will figure out what's wrong with it, even if it means buying some new parts for it.

*after doing some research it turns out that the solar panel charges a capacitor, and the non-rechargeable battery is only for backup in case you don't get enough sun.

Finally got around to getting the ISS off the roof and checking it out. Looks like the main problem was that the solar panel was not plugged into the panel...

Put a new battery in, hooked up the panel and, wow - it's transmitting! BTW, I did check the panel and it was putting out just over 2v under cloudy skies.

However, it is not outputting wind speed/direction. When I first got it going I was getting Direction, but that went away in less than an hour. Contacting Davis to troubleshoot.

 

[B7510HSD]

Check with them on sending it in for a rebuild way cheaper than new!!

 

[dnw64]

Check with them on sending it in for a rebuild way cheaper than new!!

I certainly will if need be.

They are sending (at no charge) a wind test cable. It simulates a speed and direction. If I get a reading, that means my anemometer is bad. If I don't get a reading, that means the wind module on the board is bad. Either way I think it will be a relatively simple task I can complete, unless the module is soldered on, but it didn't sound like it.

Everything else is working great - I manually dumped some water in to make sure the rain gauge was working.

Really looking forward to have this up and running. I already have a WUnderground station online, but I'm not promoting it since there's no wind info, and if I do have to send it out for repair it will obviously be entirely offline for a while.