Sandaysoft

My WS 1090 lost contact with the sensor array today. Very conveniently it was 34 days after I received it so no exchange on Amazon. I think I will wait a few days before writing a review. I will see how Ambient does with the exchange on the sensor too. I am very disappointed with the reliability. There is no reason for the lsot signal. I have the display mounted about 3o feet from the sensor inside the basement. The sensor is mounted under the deck (because the factory solar shield is a joke) and the receiver is just across the basement room with a large patio door in between.

Well, I've had consistent problems with my station losing contact with the computer as well. I've attempted the fix mentioned on page one of this thread with the power management settings. I'll report back on that. Here's what my problem was today: The station (WS-1090) froze up on me so I pulled the USB cable and reset it as normal. No joy. Restarted the computer. Cumulus started up and went into the "Downloading Data" screen for days (literally). Finally, I had to pull the batteries and hard reset the weather receiver itself before it read and communicated to the computer again. This is the first time I've had to pull the batteries on my station in months. Very peculiar.

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http://aprs.fi/weather/a/KJ4KTW-13

Yes; my set up in FL did well up until a week or so ago...it's stuck at "downloading data". I have remote access to the PC but can't do anything about resetting it.

I wish there was a means to communicate to the fine offset device to do a hard reset / soft reset of the device.

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- Pete

http://longboatkey.golffan.us/ - Fine Offset

http://lockport.golffan.us/ - Davis Vantage Vue

Anyone just leave the batteries out of the Fine Offset?

I never checked; will it work without batteries and just a USB cable?

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- Pete

http://longboatkey.golffan.us/ - Fine Offset

http://lockport.golffan.us/ - Davis Vantage Vue

Yes, but of course it restarts if the cable becomes loose, or you PC drops power to the USB port when in standby. A powered hub maybe? Anyway just leave the batteries in as a standby, they are physically isolated by a relay when on USB power so should just have their shelf life before they need replacing.

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Mark
Wilmslow Astro Weather

That sounds like a good idea - leave the batteries out and then you can reset the station remotely by having the computer briefly remove power from the USB port. The only concern I'd have, is that sometimes getting the remote sensor unit synced again can be problematic and there's no way to power cycle it without building some custom hardware. There are advantages to using wired sensors.

I'm going to try today as I had a 4 or so hour power failure yesterday night in FL. I had to do the battery / USB cable thing with the help of a neighbor (in FL) yesterday. I'm hoping just a reboot of the laptop I am using will reset the Fine Offset.

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- Pete

http://longboatkey.golffan.us/ - Fine Offset

http://lockport.golffan.us/ - Davis Vantage Vue

I doubt it, laptops do not normally power down the USB ports during a reboot, only on a full power down, they often keep them powered up during standby too (if there is a device present).

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Mark
Wilmslow Astro Weather

This laptop is an old IBM T-40. I'm trying it out for a bit. The original though was to utilize a 4.5VDC transformer on an x10 appliance module.

There's another problem though. I had a 15 hour plus power outage yesterday there and laptop shut down and there are no provisions to auto restart it when the power came back. Might replace the PC with a mini-itx in a mini case or something similiar.

Do you guys know of a way that I could check if the USB power is being reset remotely? I have heard of odd issues with these old laptops relating to their USB ports / motherboards / BIOS.

I can reboot the laptop remotely but not much else. Is Cumulus polling the time on the Fine Offset device. Would I be able to tell from this?

Might install an IP web camera on my next visit. That said while I am there will most likely replace the laptop with a small Aopen PC that I have sitting around.

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- Pete

http://longboatkey.golffan.us/ - Fine Offset

http://lockport.golffan.us/ - Davis Vantage Vue

Tried an experiment today with the USB ports. I plugged a hub / CF card reader into my home office PC. I can see the power draw. When I disable it the power draw goes to zero.

Trying to do the same in Florida remotely I cannot disconnect the Fine Offset USB port. I wonder though if it would be different connected to a powered USB hub.

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- Pete

http://longboatkey.golffan.us/ - Fine Offset

http://lockport.golffan.us/ - Davis Vantage Vue

I followed David's advice on unticking the box for the computer to save power on the root hubs. Since doing this yesterday I only have had 1 comm. error I feel this is awesome considering I would get the error and it would last up to 2hrs. I will inform everyone in this post in a couple of weeks to see how many comm errors I get. Thank you so much David for this great advice.

Jim Laursen
Melita, Manitoba Canada

Note that this thread has become confused by people talking about different problems. The problem I started the thread for is related to communication between the PC and the station, and David's USB power management suggestion is relevant to that.

It sounds to me like you are talking about 'sensor contact lost', which relates to communication between the outdoor sensors and the station, which is a different problem and unlikely to be helped by any USB power management settings.

It's possibly my fault that the thread became confused as I mentioned the 'sensor contact lost' problem. I wanted to see whether there was any link between getting that particular problem and then getting the problem where the station stopped responding to Cumulus.

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Steve
Sanday Weather
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Yes; it would be nice if there was some sort of firmware upgrade. But then again if its purely a hardware design flaw then the Fine Offset firmware upgrade wouldn't probably fix the issue.

I have the Fine Offset configured remotely in a second home. That said its been up and running since March, 2012 with only one lockup. I talked someone into removing the batteries and putting them back and and all has been fine since that time. Before that I had it installed here on a test weather mast and it did fine for over 6 months.

Before the lockup I did try remotely booting the PC which didn't work.

Doing some generic USB testing here in the midwest I could remotely disconnect the power on the USB port if I connect to a power USB hub.

That said I don't know if that would work anyways leaving the batteries inside of the unit. It would though probably work taking the batteries out and just powering the unit via USB.

Ideally then would be to not utilize batteries and just maybe an AC to DC adapter on a remote control device (X-10, Z-Wave or UPB).

I'm guessing though there might be a few folks out there with Fine Offsets in a remote location where the "issue" may occur or has occurred and wondering what they did to fix the Fine Offset lockup when it occurred?

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- Pete

http://longboatkey.golffan.us/ - Fine Offset

http://lockport.golffan.us/ - Davis Vantage Vue

I'm far from being the sharpest tool in the box, and after this had happened 10 or 12 times (loss of connection) I realised that the problem was being triggered when ever I transmitted (I'm a radio ham) on the 10m band, other bands okay, just 10m. But that's a problem for me to sort out, unless Sandy can make his software RF proof!


Jeff Cook.