Weather station recommendations ?

[adrian5750]

HI Folks
Up until last weekend I was happily running the Watson W-8681, linked into Cumulus.
In the cold weather last weekend the station stopped recording outside temperatures & data -
I was busy at the time so made a mental note 'Probably the batteries'.

Finally got round to checking the batteries today - sadly, still no data. Brief flash from the red led on the
external unit when putting new batteries in, but no data....

Have contacted the original supplier of the 8681 here in Ireland (it's only 2 months old!) -
and am waiting for their comments.

However - it's got me thinking....
I _know_ the Watson is cheap - but it ought to be reliable....
am I expecting too much for the price ?

I did pop the external unit open - and it didn't seem to have any waterproofing
for the electronics, and had the look of a cheaply-produced piece of kit....

Any thoughts / comments on an alternative weather station that might last more than 2 months -
and would work with the very excellent Cumulus software ?
What's everybody else using ?


Funny how you get 'used' to having live weather data 'on tap'. I work the open-air markets in
the summer - and it was going to be useful to know just how windy it was before setting out each weekend...

Thanks
Adrian - West Cork, Ireland

[steve]

It depends on how much you want to spend. I'm not sure you'll get anything better than what you have without spending quite a bit more. If money is no object, I would say go for the Davis Vantage Pro 2, but I believe prices went up 20% on the 1st Dec making them even more expensive.

I had an Oregon Scientific before my VP2, and that seemed reasonably well built. But I don't think there are any currently available models that work with Cumulus at the moment.

By the way, is your problem definitely with the station, and not Cumulus failing to read the data?

Steve

[meteotortosa]

I've you can spend a little money...Rainwise, of course. If you can't, Davis Vantage Pro2 Plus is your choice

Lluís

[goldrush]

I would NOT recommend La Crosse
I had a couple of 2350s which gave absolutely nothing but trouble and each worked for a matter of hours only before failing. Also the update time when using radio link is around 1.5 MINUTES
I saved 50% and got a WH1081 which so far (only some 6 weeks) has been reliable. Having said that I also originally had a WS8681 which failed after a week or two. it was replaced and that too failed after a month.
Guess we both need to spend lots of luverly dosh!

[dc1500]

My Watson has run trouble free for three months now(I'm regretting typing this already!) and has worked well down to minus 3.5 so far. It seems that you either pay £69 for a Watson type or over £200 for something of quality. Stuff in between that probably isn't any better or possibly worse than thew watson. (e.g. Lacrosse, I have had a temperature logger of their's for six months, looks nice but has packed up).
My philosophy is that if the Watson lasts a year I'll buy another one if it breaks!
Dave

[TrOjAn]

OK, the watsons cheap, no doubt about that... however, I have read lots about the water proofing being non existent and I must say looking at the unit design I cannot see any issue.

The 2 x plugs are under the temp sensor cover so no water can get at them, the rain sensor is covered and sealed and the wind speed unit is under the vane which will throw water off.

If I had to fault the unit, it would be the battery compartment, its too small!! I intend running some 2 core from it to inside the shed and connect to 2 x d batteries which should last for like ages.

TrOjAn

[keithatrochdale]

I too was thinking of running an umbilical lead to mine, but I am told the batteries should last 2 years odd, so is there a need?

There has been some comment about making the rain gauge spider proof and also blocking off half the outlet holes due to problems with wind.

[akinvic]

I'll throw my hat in the ring and say if you want to make this a fairly serious hobby at least go for a Davis Vantage Pro2. Having said that I haven't owned any of the other mentioned units, but most in the local weather community here would agree that's the way to go. Our local schools have recently been outfitted with VP2's for the students to track weather observations.

Don't live in the UK, but a quick google search of prices revealed there's still a couple of vendors selling the wireless models of the VP2 at the older pricing level (generally around £570-580). So yeah, it's pretty serious coin to spend on a weather station. But I took the plunge three years ago and haven't regretted it.

Cheers,
Andreas

[dc1500]

I think you've hit the nail on the head really. Serious, professional meteorology £500+, amateur enthusiast with good data via Cumulus and some mods £69. The choice is yours !

Dave

P.S. All are quite adept at garbage in/garbage out - the key is attention to calibration,detail and siting.

[harrym1byt]

I would suggest that moisture has got into the transmitter via the battery compartment. It only needs to get into the bottom there, for evaporation and condensation to move the moisture up into the electronics. Carefully drying it out (airing cupboard or warm radiator) might restore it back to life.

When I first installed mine back in May/June, seeing the potential for problems, I put duct tape over battery cover to provide it with a bit more protection. Since then I have added a Stevenson Screen made from a series of upside down plant pot drain dishes. These will almost certainly prevent rain being driven onto the tramitter unit as well as screening the temperature sensor from the direct sun light.

The only problem I had since buying the unit was with the software sometimes producing silly rain figures, almost resolved with the V4 and V5 of EasyWeather. Instead of the massive rain figures, I still see slight glitches in the rain recorded, as if they have done some filtering within the software.

[adrian5750]

HI Folks

(I typed a reply earlier but the forum software seems to have thrown it away... so here goes again !)

Thanks for all the helpful responses - omnibus reply follows <g>

Seems like the Watson is the only game in town at this sort of price (sub £100) - which is about all I can afford at the moment...

I suppose it's possible that the base station is failing to recieve the data from the remote head -
would you believe that I've just come in after doing some work outside and the darn thing's working again now - happily collecting data..... - don;t you just love intermittent faults.....?

I've seen something on the web 'somewhere' about poor quality soldering on these units - so it might be worth taking a fine soldering iron to the remote (easy - had that apart this morning!) and the base station (looks like half a dozen tiny self-tappers to take that apart) - and see if there's any obvious dry joints. This will, no doubt, invalidate the warranty - but might get the things up & running 24/7 rather than just when it feels like it...

Anybody else been 'inside' the base station ? - hints & tips ??

Waterproofing on the remote head - well - there seems to be little or no attempt to keep water out of the remote case - the two halves popped apart quite easily with my trusty swiss army knife earlier on today. I was surprised to see that there's nothing in the way of conformal coating or even a simple laquer on the pcb - so any damp that finds its way into the box is going to end up on the tracking. Rather than try to waterproof the box I was thinking of applying a laquer to the pcb (keeping it clear of the sensors, of course).
This is Wild West Cork, where the rain tends to come horizontally off the Atlantic as often as vertically out of the sky - and salt spray will strip the leaves from tender plants overnight - a fairly harsh environment at times...

dc1500 mentioned some mods - wonder where those might be available ?

akinvic commented about spending £600 on a 'serious' piece of kit - simply can't justify that sort of expense, I'm afraid...

keithatrochdale mentioned - Long lead & bigger batteries, looks as if the batteries weren't the problem today - more likely some kind of dry joint in one unit or the other..... - I guess the symptoms would be the same if the remote wasn't sending as if the base wasn't recieving ??

I suppose, if the supplier comes back with the offer of a swapout then I'll take it - in the hope that I've just been unlucky with this unit. I see that Maplin have them on special offer - so if the original guy doesn't have a spare, but refunds me, then I could get me a Maplin one & try that.... maybe having first 'tropicalised' the remote unit....

Any thoughts or comments on this lot - gratefully appreciated....

Thanks all
Adrian

[adrian5750]

I would suggest that moisture has got into the transmitter via the battery compartment. It only needs to get into the bottom there, for evaporation and condensation to move the moisture up into the electronics. Carefully drying it out (airing cupboard or warm radiator) might restore it back to life.

When I first installed mine back in May/June, seeing the potential for problems, I put duct tape over battery cover to provide it with a bit more protection. Since then I have added a Stevenson Screen made from a series of upside down plant pot drain dishes. These will almost certainly prevent rain being driven onto the tramitter unit as well as screening the temperature sensor from the direct sun light.

The only problem I had since buying the unit was with the software sometimes producing silly rain figures, almost resolved with the V4 and V5 of EasyWeather. Instead of the massive rain figures, I still see slight glitches in the rain recorded, as if they have done some filtering within the software.

Hi Harry

Thanks for the comments - yes - I was thinking 'dry' joints or 'wet' circuit board <g>
Maybe washing the cct board down with IPA (not the beer!) and then getting some laquer on it would be a start..

I can't visualise your Stevenson Screen - do you have a photo ?

I've given up on EasyWeather (after seeing the feedback!) - so now using Cumulus...

Regards
Adrian

[harrym1byt]

If any of my (lots of) electronics suffer water damage, I just remove the power or batteries and give them a good flush down under the hot tap and leave them on top of the hot water tank to dry out after blowing the moisture out with a compressor jet. Its worked for every item including a number of phones, providing damage has already not been done to the electronics.

I've described the screen I built in this forum in detail. I bought 7 or 8 large plant pot drain dishes, used upside down and spaced apart by some suitable bits of tube. Three lengths of screwed hold pass through all of the dishes, evenly spaced around the perimeter, the dishes spaced apart by the tubular spacers which are about 1" long, three per dish. In the centre of each dish a hole is cut of a suitable size to allow the transmitter to fit through it, with the exception of what will be the top two dishes. Three nuts on top, three nuts on the bottom - hold it all together. When finished, just spray it white to reflect the sun. The idea was not mine, but one I adopted. See this thread for some pictures of the basic idea.

http://www.midlandsweather.org.uk/techi ... dings.html

Something like this, with three tubular spacers between each layer-

__________
/ \
__________
/ \
__________
/ \
__________
/ \
__________
/ \

[harrym1byt]

Sorry... the diagram should have looked symetrical, but the spaces keeping the / and the \ apart were lost in the posting.