Sandaysoft

Hi,

I wonder what the possibilities are for the addition of extra sensors to a standard setup. In my case an Elecsa AstroTouch 6975 (Fine Offset WH-108?) with temp, humidity, rain, air pressure, DCF radio controled clock, wind-speed and direction-sensors.
Is it possible to add a sun radiation sensor or a UV sensor to the others?
The standard EasyWeather program misses the necessary options, so it appears from the lack in the manufacturers software that nothing can be added in the hadware either, but is this really not possible?

/Ron

Hi Ron,

If it has a DCF clock then it's probably the 1080 equivalent (the 1081 has no DCF).

However, I believe that the hardware AND firmware (wireless protocol) of the solar versions (WH308x) are different, so there is no possibility of adding the solar sensors to a standard unit. See this current thread where we are (probably) discussing a related issue.

But keep a watch on the "Homebuilt" section here, where I may be starting a relevant project thread soon.

Cheers, Alan.

Hello Alan,

That ends that thought very quickly, but thanks anyway!
So in order to get solar readings I'd have to buy another station. I am not against homebuilt gear but haven't got the time for it right now, so I might go for a ready made set with the solar sensor included.

Bye,

Ron

Hi Ron,

The WH3080/1 (FO Solar) does have a few worthwhile improvements, but before purchasing one, please do read some of the threads on this forum concerning them. In addition to their present reliability issues, the Solar Pod is permanently attached to the transmitter's solar screen, which IMHO makes it almost impossible to get satisfactory readings for both solar AND temperature at the same time.

Cheers, Alan.

Hi, does anyone know the exact part number for the Holtek USB IC, it looks like its HT82M something but it's not clear from the photo. I have a cunning plan to get a better update rate on the wind speed and direction sensors (I'm not too bothered on update rate for the other sensors) but need to know a bit more about that IC before I can decide whether my plan is viable.

Martin.

82M99, according to a post in this thread: http://sandaysoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2936

_________________
Steve
Sanday Weather
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Thanks, a bit more detail about my plan. :-

Fit a better quality TX/RX unit with decent aerials to extend the range.
Work out the protocol for the wireless link between the units (has someone done this already?)
Work out the protocol for the USB link (ditto?).
Fit my own little micro to the transmitter which will continue sending Wind speed and direction info when the units main micro isn't.
Fit another micro to the the receiver which will send the extra data to the PC via the USB connector.

This means that the update rate on the receivers LCD display will be unchanged but the PC will get far more frequent wind information. Could cumulus cope with this?

Long term would be to completely replace the transmitters micro with my own to do all the sensors at higher speed, I doubt the LCD will update faster but the PC should.

Martin.

Others have asked about this, but I'm not aware of anyone who has actually done it.

The protocol is available unofficially from various places, e.g. http://code.google.com/p/fowsr/downloads/list

Cumulus just reads the station's current data location every 10 seconds and treats what it gets as a new set of data, even if it hasn't changed. I can't think of any code in Cumulus which would care if it actually did update more often than the normal 48 seconds. I don't really understand how your plan works, but it involves hardware so that's not surprising

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Hi Martin,

You've omitted "Fit a larger battery to the transmitter" (or maybe add solar powering). The reason that the transmitter runs for a year or more on a pair of cells is that it only transmits for 50ms every 48 seconds (i.e. 0.1% duty cycle).

Good luck working out the RF protocol, nobody else seems to have succeeded yet.

However, I am working on a project which happens to involve "processing" the FO wind data more frequently (but it's not the prime aim of the project), maybe some details in the Homebuilt section soon.

Cheers, Alan.

Ah sorry I don't mean the USB link between the receiver and the PC I mean the bit between the micro in the receiver and the Holtek USB chip. Would there be any way of making Cumulus look at the data more frequently than every 10 seconds (at least for wind information?) My long term plan for this is for use at firework displays where wind information is a priority but what the weather in general is likely to do is also very useful so what I want to have is :-

Portable handheld receiver giving just wind information (with audible alarms) that can be carried round the site.
Existing LCD display giving an overview of the weather in general.
PC logging everything but in particular windspeed and direction.

Martin.

Not a concern for me it will only ever need to run for a week at a time maximum and usually a lot less than that.

I had a feeling you were after something more low level than the bit I understand.
It would be easy enough to make the interval configurable (I've been thinking of doing that anyway); I'd just have to check to make sure that I haven't written any code that currently relies on the 10 second interval. It would have to read all of the data at the same time, not just the wind data.

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Well I'm making progress, I've isolated the bits of the data stream that indicate :-

Wind speed
Direction
Rainfall
Temperature
Humidity
Low battery
possibly TX battery voltage?

But I haven't been able to work out how the numbers sent correspond to what's displayed yet. Next stage is to make a dummy transmitter so I can send numbers of my choice and see what they correspond to on the display. There's also a lot of bits that don't seem to change whatever I do, maybe reserved for other features?

Martin.

Ah what I though may be battery voltage looks like it may be a checksum which is a bit of a stumbling block until I can work out what checksum method they've used.

Martin.

Can you please share your findings so far? I'm planning on rigging up a microcontroller to receive the data from my station (I'm just awaiting a pitch changer for the RF transceiver I've got, so I can attach it more easily) - so anything you're able to share would be a great help, both in terms of your setup and the protocol. I've got a TI Launchpad (with an MSP430G2553) lined up for the job, with a CC1101-based transceiver module, but no matter what you're using I'm sure there'll be some room for collaboration (i.e. the protocol).

Cheers,
Paul