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SteelSeries gauges, windspeed and meteobridge - help? :)

Posted: Thu 14 Nov 2013 11:41 pm
by Tugrik
Greetings! I've got my station up and running using the Meteobridge appliance on a Davis Vantage Pro 2. I use the Saratoga templates and added the Steel Series gauges.

Everything appears to work except for the realtime wind speed value. The average and gust speeds display great, but the realtime wind pointer does not move. I think that the scripts somehow don't get or parse the realtime (windact) data. I suspect that is also the reason other things that use it (such as windchill) are broken too.

The page in question: http://wx.fbrtech.com/wxssgauges.php

Any hints or debugging steps? I'm stepping through as much of the code as my just-barely-learning-java brain allows me to, and so far nothing jumps out other than thinking the 'wind actual' value isn't making it into the program somehow.

Not sure if this is the right place to post as I'm only running meteobridge/saratoga-templates/steelseries, and no actual Cumulus or even a local computer attached. I'm trying to do this on the lowest power / least local maintenance possible, and once I've got it all set up I'm going to replicate it at a number of other sites owned by friends and relatives. :)

Re: SteelSeries gauges, windspeed and meteobridge - help? :)

Posted: Fri 15 Nov 2013 8:22 am
by Tugrik
Actually, between the time I submitted this and when it was approved I solved the main problem. Putting the answer here in case others find it helpful:

The problem was in the config in the Meteobridge. In the "push services / individual http upload" section, there was a single extra space accidentally inserted in the middle of the actual-wind variable name. This was keeping that value from being populated in the MBrealtimegauges file on the server. Fixed that and the wind gauge started working.

I still don't know why the "wind chill" gauge goes to zero when selected, though. Still hacking on that, suggestions appreciated! :) And thanks for approving the post.

Re: SteelSeries gauges, windspeed and meteobridge - help? :)

Posted: Fri 15 Nov 2013 10:14 am
by mcrossley
The value of wind chill in your realtimegauges.txt is corrupted:

"wchill":"[wind0chill -act]"



Also a number of the values in your realtime.txt look to be corrupted, wind chill is one of them...

Rain Unit = mm_
Wind Chill = [wind0chill_-act]
rainfall last hour = [rai_n0total-sum60]
time of today's high wind speed (average) (hh:mm) = gw:in

Re: SteelSeries gauges, windspeed and meteobridge - help? :)

Posted: Fri 15 Nov 2013 10:21 am
by mcrossley
Looking at your tags (http://wx.fbrtech.com/MBtags.php?sce=dump)...


$WX['wind0chill-act'] = '45.9'; // outdoor wind chill temperature most recent

it seems you have an extra space in the gauges file
"wchill":"[wind0chill -act]"

and your realtime.txt has extra underscores.

Re: SteelSeries gauges, windspeed and meteobridge - help? :)

Posted: Fri 15 Nov 2013 11:03 am
by Tugrik
Extra spaces fixed -- thank you! Looks like I had a cut-paste encoding error when trying to put the template into place. And thank you for the URL to the tags dump file. Slowly, slowly, I learn how this thing works so I can be more self-sufficient. :)

Now to go figure out thresholds for LED triggering. Much forum reading ahead! And also to find out if I can get the Meteobridge to push the forecast block instead of just 'conditions updated'... though that's most likely on the meteobridge side and I shouldn't clog up your forum with it. Thanks for the newbie help; I need it!

Re: SteelSeries gauges, windspeed and meteobridge - help? :)

Posted: Thu 21 Nov 2013 12:02 am
by Tugrik
Odd thing I noticed: if there is any kind of blip in my ISP service, when it comes back (even if only a few seconds long) the steel-series gauges get 'stuck'. Everything else appears to work perfectly; only the live gauges stop rendering. Usually the gauges display with no readings and a "0" on the countdown clock (instead of the usual 10 seconds). Sometimes, though, they'll not render and the LCD just says "Downloading..." forever.

wx.fbrtech.com

The MBrealtime.txt and MBrealtimegauges.txt seem to be ok, and all other weather services/functions appear to work.

Considering the notable lack of performance that Comcast exhibits during rainstorms out here in the bay area, I can expect these little blips once or twice a day during the rainy season. :( What should I check? Any chance that something is getting stuck or corrupted if cut off during an upload?

Re: SteelSeries gauges, windspeed and meteobridge - help? :)

Posted: Thu 21 Nov 2013 1:15 pm
by mcrossley
I left your page running for several hours and didn't get a failure.

Re: SteelSeries gauges, windspeed and meteobridge - help? :)

Posted: Thu 21 Nov 2013 7:01 pm
by Tugrik
Yeah, it's behaving now, go figure. Just like a kid when you take them to the doc. :) Thank you for looking, and for the excellent support!

If/when comcast takes a nosedive again I'll see if it happens again, but for now I'll figure it's just a quirk of my particular system.