Sandaysoft

I bought a 'Watson' W8681-Solar from Waters and Stanton on Friday and put it up yesterday.

Initially the Solar and UV data was showing fine but at some point today they changed to just showing dashes on the console. I've used the down arrow reset but that's made no difference.

It seems this is a common problem. Am I best off calling Steve tomorrow at the shop to ask him for a replacement unit or is it worth pulling it all down and seeing if I can do a manual fix? The fix seems a little hit and miss.

I need to make some changes, at the moment I fixed everything together at the top of a 20ft pole mounted 8ft up on the side of the house but I think the rainfall sensor needs to be lowered as I'm getting readings when it's windy. Am I right in thinking the rainfall sensor should be on something as solid as possible?

My station is online at http://www.g6nhu.co.uk/wx right now.

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Kirby Cross Weather on Twitter

Hi John,

You might be onto something there.

I have been running a test for Fine Offset and my last test was putting in a link in a certain place. It did not work.

Then they wrote back and asked me to repeat the test which I did but I decided to run the test with my spare sensor (instead of the working setup I have) and used a second set of batteries on the spare Tx unit. This was to avoid my readings from the working unit failing. However the test solar did not fail like it did the other day (2 days in a row) but the working one did (this one has not failed since my resistor mod many days ago).

I have just measured the battery voltage in both Tx units and its very interesting. The working unit (that failed) is 3.22V and the test unit (that did not fail) is 2.82V. This lines up with what you are saying.

I have just turned off the test unit and installed it outside in my working setup (the one with the higher 3.22v) as I was earlier wondering if having two Tx units running at the same time might have interfered somehow, but maybe not if the battery theory holds. Something else to think about now

phil

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http://www.auzhq.net/weather - using a VP2+

If it's down to voltage, would swapping the 'Alkaline rechargables' for ordinary NiMH or Eneloops help? They're 1.2v cells so there's no chance of them going over voltage.

It depends on whether the charging circuitry will cope with NiMH cells.

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Kirby Cross Weather on Twitter

Hi I run a Watson 8681 solar which I also had this problem station went up in July Last year and functioned fine until October the solar reading froze after a reset cleared ran for 2 hrs and the froze again after messing around for several day I gave up and left it with dashes, then in December we had a fall in temp to about 2c and the whole unit failed I removed the supplied batteries checked them and they appeared fine but would not function in unit replaced them with
a set of Duracells reset station all came up fine and solar unit functioning full ever since then.
the supplied batteries were put in a torch and work fine yet will not work on station so I get the same impression that they are over charging, and slowly shut the unit down starting with the solar readings and then the complete sensor I will keep monitoring the batteries and let you all know what happens hope this is usefull info

Nigel R
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/nigelran3/index.htm

Interesting, Nigel. Ordinary Duracells or rechargables?

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Kirby Cross Weather on Twitter

ordinary Duracells as could not get out for rechargables, but they are working fine at the moment will be putting in some lithiums when I can get out, being disabled I have to wait for help with it

Nigel R

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/nigelran3/index.htm

I really don't understand why FO won't document whatever mod they did to my unit. It has been 100% reliable - without the need to do anything to batteries I've emailed them again to see if I can get them to tell me.

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This may have some relevance to the observations on battery voltage as my transmitter has Ni-mh rechargeable batteries in it, not alkaline and, although the low battery warning icon is showing the whole unit has been working fine. The warning has been showing for over two weeks now!
John

Hi again, I have had a week of no lockups of the solar module since I covered the UV sensor which is great because when the solar panel locked up in the past I did start to get transmisson problems which became gradually worse. The range and sensitivity to receiver position became gradually worse to the point where the unit was eventually unusable.

At that time I decided to see if I could isolate the problem so I disconnected the solar module and the transmissions still failed. I then replaced the rechargable batteries in the transmitter module with normal 1.5v akaline batteries (with the solar module still disconnected) and it worked fine with great range.

This behaviour leads me to conclude that when the solar module locks up it enters a mode where it is drawing more current than normal (maybe not "sleeping") and the solar cell cannot maintain sufficient charge in the batteries so the transmissions start to fail as the voltage drops. The little red LED below the solar cell is also on when the solar module locks up which supports this theory. Perhaps this also explains the behaviour others are seeing if they swap batteries.

The solution would appear to be to ensure that the UV sensor doesn't lock up the solar module CPU by high UV readings. Hopefully Fine Offset are working on this.

I've just had confirmation from FO that there are indeed old and dew versions of the solar/uv sensor. The ones I have (and the pictures I posted showing the black wire and changed pcb) are, as suspected, the new version. They tell me they are still working on a fix for the old version and will reply when that have it sorted.

Cheers
Colin.

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Hi Colin,

I'm just wondering how old FO's "old" is - very conveniently, FO don't seem to have printed any version/revision information on the board, so users can't easily compare boards.

I have a 3081 bought Feb. 2011 and it's solar internals match your photos of 2 days ago, so it's interesting they've suddenly come up with a mod they were implementing a year ago.

My problem is with the transmitter - it's signal strength is so low the base unit can't receive over more than about a metre, but the solar side of things has always worked ok..

FO might do well to make the remote sensor units a bit more water resistant.

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Graeme.
http://weather.gktnet.com/cumulus/index.htm

Ah hah, another piece to the puzzle I think - thanks Graeme.

So, if your solar/uv sensor is the same as my "new" "v2" unit (including the wire?) then in fact all FO have done is sent me the later version, probably knowing that the problem was fixed in this version.
What they are trying to do now is go back and devise a fix for the goodness knows how many "v1" units that are still being sold. I was lead to believe (by FO) that the 3081 was a relatively recent product, but I guess recent is relative

Yes I'm wondering how long my tx unit will last outside - but that's another story

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I'll add my weight to this. My experience is that a failed/locked up solar sensor decreases TX battery life (GP Alkaline) to around 6-8 weeks. I've isolated the solar unit at the last battery change, so I'll be able to tell in another few weeks- less if the temperatures drop for a while- if life has improved.

David

Mine lasted about 2 weeks - till we had a decent (about 6mm) shower of rain. The transmitter stopped sending, and after I dried it out, just didn't come back.

These things really do need to be in a proper stevensons screen to be useful.

...we live and learn....

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Graeme.
http://weather.gktnet.com/cumulus/index.htm

Hi All,

Received my replacement Solar units from Fine Offset yesterday. My faulty units are on their way back to FO for analysis.

I opened one up and it was not the "newer" one Colin reported (one with the long wire link) though it was modified with a small link under the Solar Panel which bypasses a low sunlight function (as informed by FO). It also has the Crystal soldered to ground.

Anyway it was promptly placed into service outside last night and I am happy to report it worked all day which is a first for me (at least for a factory standard one - that is one without my light sensor attenuation mod).

That said I wont be convinced for some time yet, when I see a minimum of 3 days continuous operation I might break out the beer.

Also - I mentioned the suspect supply voltage issue raised by John (Taylon) to my contact at FO and he has acknowledged it may be an issue. He did say he has some tests running under "Strong Light" and those batteries are around 3.2 Volts and are all fine. None the less he is going to investigate that further.

Cheers
Phil

EDIT: Day 4 and all is still good

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http://www.auzhq.net/weather - using a VP2+