PERSONAL WEATHER STATIONS: Queries and Advice

I've no intention on paying for a repair, the weather station is not old and shouldn't really be failing this soon!

byhookorbycrook

George Sunsnow wrote: »

What’s your budget?

I really have no idea , I’m looking for something sturdy and low maintenance , but have no clue what a reasonable budget for that is . As a primary school , the budget won’t be huge !

George Sunsnow

JCX BXC wrote: »

I've no intention on paying for a repair, the weather station is not old and shouldn't really be failing this soon!

The Davis’s tend to last over a decade but if a part goes,it’s unlikely you’ll get joy after 18 months or so
That said,how old is it,it’s outdoor equipment so should be ‘fit for purpose’
Agree’ing how many years that is could be a problem
I had to replace the transmitter board on my vantage pro 2 but it was well over a decade

George Sunsnow

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I really have no idea , I’m looking for something sturdy and low maintenance , but have no clue what a reasonable budget for that is . As a primary school , the budget won’t be huge !

About €400 would get you a good station
Davis is the best brand
I’ve a new Oregon scientific wmr300 which you can get for about that money
It so far seems every bit as good as the vantage pro 2 it’s competing with for half the price
The more basic vantage vue from Davis is about that price also but doesn’t have the capacity to add extra sensors and has a built in anemometer so you cannot put one on a pole

There are ways around that but it involves more money

George Sunsnow wrote: »

The Davis’s tend to last over a decade but if a part goes,it’s unlikely you’ll get joy after 18 months or so
That said,how old is it,it’s outdoor equipment so should be ‘fit for purpose’
Agree’ing how many years that is could be a problem
I had to replace the transmitter board on my vantage pro 2 but it was well over a decade

If it was over 2 years I probably wouldn't have a problem, however it failed after 13 months. Not exactly fit for purpose!

Would probably be a good idea to get onto the retailer, however time is a limiting factor! Will get around to it soon though. Working for the moment at least!

George Sunsnow

Oh 13 months is definitely a sale of goods act EC consumer protection windowable complaint in my opinion

Don’t leave it,you may action it now because obviously proving it wasn’t working for a few months prior to arguing the toss with the sellers will be a problem
You will have to go to where you bought it first

I know the consumer law like the back of my hand

Normally I would go straight to the retailer however Davis did appear to have a good support front so I said I'd try them first. Won't get around to it this week but next week I should definitely do so.

Thanks for the advice

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I really have no idea , I’m looking for something sturdy and low maintenance , but have no clue what a reasonable budget for that is . As a primary school , the budget won’t be huge !

Cheaper type in Maplin: €110 https://www.maplin.ie/p/wireless-weather-station-n25fr
Not as good but will do for educational purposes.

Died at 5am this morning, will buy a battery today to tie me over if I get to the shop.

Fun

JCX BXC wrote: »

Died at 5am this morning, will buy a battery today to tie me over if I get to the shop.

Fun

6 days on and the batteries still going, (was only 3 days last time), lets hope the issue resolved itself!

On a different note, my davis has been slowly dripping all the snow and slush into the rain gauge, so it generally says it's raining for an hour after the last precip!

Despite my very efforts, including (but not limited to) countless climbs up the roof yesterday, both wind speed and wind direction sensors refused to operate. Set of spare ones won't work either. However, tipping rain gauge plugged into a "wind" socket shows some wind on a display, so more than likely transmitter's okay.

Anyway, I am tired of endless problems with FineOffset (and their clones) stations, so will leave it as it is, until it dies.

The conclusion - if you want a trouble, buy yourself FineOffset or it's rebranded clone station! Lots of swearing guaranteed!

I had a similar problem with the wind anemometer, turned out it was the copper contacts ininthe socket of the wind vane corroding.
Bought a new one for 17e on Ali and all's good so far

1 PCS OF Spare part for weather station to test the wind direction, WH-SP-WD
http://s.aliexpress.com/B7jqeABJ

I've 2 sets of wind gauges (2 anemometers + 2 wind direction gauges), plugs and sockets cleaned regularly. None of them work anymore. I think is time to bin the whole thing.

mickmackey1

If we look at the yearly high temp and windspeed from this Limerick PWS on WU:

https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=ILIMERIC7#history/s20171005/e20181006/myear

we see figures of 35c and 234 km/h... Not sure what is the point of uploading wrong information and also would question WU's quality control.

[Deleted User]

mickmackey1 wrote: »

If we look at the yearly high temp and windspeed from this Limerick PWS on WU:

https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=ILIMERIC7#history/s20171005/e20181006/myear

we see figures of 35c and 234 km/h... Not sure what is the point of uploading wrong information and also would question WU's quality control.

looking at the data, it appears to be just a few bad data points the station owner can easily edit out the duff data. WU don't validate the data at all.

mickmackey1

Deleted User wrote: »

looking at the data, it appears to be just a few bad data points the station owner can easily edit out the duff data. WU don't validate the data at all.

mmm I suspected that WU don't verify anything alright, although I think it wouldn't be too difficult to include a few algorithms that could call out suspicious data. Looks like the owner isn't going to sort it out at this stage anyway.

PWS software usually's equipped with sort of "remove peaks" features, just need to be set appropriately. Sadly I wasn't aware of that years ago when started running my own station. Now, I am too lazy to go through all the data and do the proper cleanup.

joujoujou wrote: »

Now, I am too lazy to go through all the data and do the proper cleanup.

Same, I have limits set, albeit a little high, but occasionally a blip gets recorded as a max. As I have to manually delete rows with SQL it gets out on the long finger :-)

RobertKK

I have given in and ordered a new temperature/humidity sensor for my Davis Vantage Pro 2. The humidity sensor was working very patchy, sometimes working, other times not, and for the last few days it has been the not variety.
Heading towards winter and I want my dew points

Rhineshark

KAGY wrote: »

Same, I have limits set, albeit a little high, but occasionally a blip gets recorded as a max. As I have to manually delete rows with SQL it gets out on the long finger :-)

Can you import such data into anything basic like Excel? I've found excel very useful for dealing with climate and lab data, especially sorting out anomalies, but don't recall doing it from a back garden weather station.

I could, but then I'd have to reimport it back to the db for the website, graphs and sharing with wunderground and wow.met

It's not difficult, it's just that I suffer from chronic apathy :-)

Finally got around to it, at least for the wind values. I'm going to miss that 168kph spike in the graph.
New graph:
6034073

slayer91

Hi,

In the same boat with the Davis Vantage humidity sensor, can I ask you where you got a new one??

Regs

Liam K

RobertKK

slayer91 wrote: »

Hi,

In the same boat with the Davis Vantage humidity sensor, can I ask you where you got a new one??

Regs

Liam K

I had trouble finding where a replacement was listed as being sold, and ended up at https://www.skyview.co.uk/collections/davis-spares-accessories/products/davis-instruments-temperature-humidity-digital-sensor-board-for-vantage-pro2-dav-7346-166

They charge a lot for postage...

rolion

Hello,

Thanks for sharing info.

I'm looking for a PWS that does all the basic things but needs to have wind and UV sensor reports.
Reporting / uploading to online site nice feature too.
Rechargeable batteries nice one but I can run a cable and get a AC adapter.
A webcam incorporated or added as a second feature will be nice.

Found a nice Acurite Atlas station, does all the things I want...
Main issue that I found so far is that the wireless frequency is not approved for use in EU but rather only US.
Someone said that is illegal and it could affect some GSM band devices.

Their website is not accessible from EU either so I found some video :

What options do I have, please !?
No budget set in my mind, quite flexible here..

Thanks

WS-2902 maybe, but I'm struggling to find them outside the US (so more than likely radio frequency issues as well).

tonc76

Hi,

I'm interested in dipping my toe into PWS and am considering buying this one to see how I get on: https://www.froggit.de/product_info.php?info=p287_froggit-wh3000-se-wifi-internet-app-weather-station.html

I want to link up with Weather Underground and then see if I can link the output to a nest thermostat through IFTTT.

Any thoughts on this system and what I am hoping to achieve?

Thanks

[Deleted User]

tonc76 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm interested in dipping my toe into PWS and am considering buying this one to see how I get on: https://www.froggit.de/product_info....r-station.html

I want to link up with Weather Underground and then see if I can link the output to a nest thermostat through IFTTT.

Any thoughts on this system and what I am hoping to achieve?

Thanks

The url is broken, we can't see the station.

tonc76

Deleted User wrote: »

The url is broken, we can't see the station.

fixed in my original post now