Installed the new weather station
(Thu 11th 5am}
Had a problem with the weather station site as it was reporting nearly 50mm of rain which was incorrect.
Don't know if it was something I did or the 5 min belting the hail gave the sensors
at 3:10pm on the 9th. So in a fashion, I re-booted the station and base receiver and started again
Prior to that all was chuffing along fine. Let's see how it goes now.
Had another few silly things going on overnight. But I worked that one out. Something I overlooked.
Phone me if you want the details as I'm embarrassed to detail them here
All fixed now
{Thu 11th 815pm}
Looks like things are going ok. I need to build a 'Stevenson Screen' for the temp/humidity sensor
as the sun affects (increases) the readings when it hits the sensor. The screen that came with the
station I think is a little inadequate. Will look into that
(Sun 14th 130pm)
Things have been going along reasonably well apart from the fact the EasyWeather software that came with the station is very
basic and as I have found out from experience and reading forums is prone create monsoonal rainfall.
(That is what we really want over our water catchments, not as phantom data)
While searching for alternative software and trying out various things which didn't work, I found
The "Weather Display" software which communicates with the station and is a ftp client. It is actually
{I'd expect) like jumping out of a ultra light into the space shuttle with all the fancy stuff.
This is an upside as I have been using 2 software packages, 1 to read the station data and the other
to import the data file and create the old web page. It will probably take some time to fine tune the ftp
uploading but as of now the new web site is up and running.
Well, on Tuesday (16th) I performed a data clear of the station console while the software was running and it was connected to the computer.
This produced a 98 Km/h wind gust and some rain. (Learning the hard way!)
No matter what I did I couldn't get rid of the all time wind gust of 98 Km/h.
So I've started once again.
(Sun 21st 600pm)
I have had concerns that the wind speed was not being reported accurately, so I established an observation point with a lager or 2 or 3,
and monitored the anemometer and the reaction it had with the wind. I noticed that while it was rotating it was fine but in very light wind
that it would stop rotating at the same point numerous times, and then start rotating again after a slight a gust of wind. This is the point
when I decided to remove the anemometer for inspection and further testing. I found that it has a friction point where it stops rotating in
very light breeze at exactly the same point. I have further established that it's method of operation is a reed switch which activates twice
each revolution so there is no physical contact with the whirligig and the sensor. I thought that it may be one of the magnets causing the
problem (Like attracting itself to the reed switch) but can't dismantle it due to warranty issues, anyway why wouldn't if fail twice a
revolution considering that it has 2 magnets per rev and it only stops on 1 point during its total rotation. I did carry out some routine
maintenance and improved its operation but I think I'll need to return it for a replacement under warranty. Anyway that is the reason for the
glitch with today's data while that station was down. Need to remember to turn everything off before any maintenance is carried out in the future.
(Thu 25th 630pm)
You may have noticed that today there was no wind speed data. I took the anemometer back to Jaycar after talking to Nathan at Jaycar Sunshine
regarding the friction point causing the anemometer to stall in light wind. He told me to bring it in and he would replace it on the spot, which
he did!, taking a new anemometer from another complete box. Excellent warranty service. I could've purchased this weather station on ebay
for less than that I paid from Jaycar, but I wouldn't have received the service I got from Jaycar had I gone with ebay.
Thumbs up for Jaycar.....
Anyway, the new anemometer is working well. I have relocated the station and the temp/humidity sensor to a sheltered place until I can build a
stevenson screen for them. (Haven't had the time or resourses lately) I have a number of large trees here surrounding the weather station and
my property so I have, and will continue to try different locations around here to find the optimum location. That's about it for now.
(Sat 27th 700pm)
Today I spent 2 hours driving around for ready made materials to build a 'Stevenson Screen' with a disappointing result.
So I tracked back home and used what I had and a little out of the square thought and come up with a small 'Stevenson Screen'
This should reduce the abnormally high maximum temperatures that have been recorded when the sun is out.
After monitoring the data for a bit, I'll build a larger 'Stevenson Screen' for a more permanent fixture.
Oh yes, the replacement anemometer is working extremely well
You can see my handy work here
(Tue 30th 700pm)
Grrrr! Back to easy weather and cumulus software. During the 65Km/h pounding the station had, the rain gauge
recorded 20mm of rain caused by vibration/shaking from the wind gusts. It appears to be very sensitive.
I have now moved the rain gauge from the station mast and mounted it on top of the stevenson screen
for now which is much more solid
I tried for 2 hours to remove the offending data from the logs without success.
Weather Display software is good, but very much over engineered and complicated.
So I now have gone back to the easyweather software that came with the unit and
Cumulus (Much more user friendly, and allows me more html control) to serve the web page.
(Tue 1st July 700pm)
(Massive Sigh!)
Back to Weather Display. I like the graphs better.
Will have to learn how to drive it better. Think I know where I went wrong yesterday.
A big learning curve
(Tuesday 14th July 800pm)
I have been playing around with the station rain gauge comparing the reported rain with my old and trusty manual rain gauge.
There has been a 25% (approximate) discrepancy with the station gauge. I have implemented another rain gathering mechanism to feed the
station rain gauge to reflect a more accurate reading.
Results to follow (Praying for rain) Stay Tuned
(Thursday 23rd July 800pm)
Still playing around with the station rain gauge, only just got some rain to compare settings. Getting there slowly.
A big thanks to Sam from "Clean Bay Car Wash" in Strathmore, (The place to wash your car), for the donation
of a replacement power supply that powers the notebook that runs the Station software and web updates. (The old one was slowly dying)
The notebook now has a new lease of life. Thanks again Sam!
(Saturday 25th July 1:19pm)
As you can see I have re-written the weather site so not to be as busy as it was.
It is a living project so there will be changes and additions as needed.
The way it is now gives me total control of the layout which I didn't have before.
The site data is updated every 1 min at the moment, will see how it goes with the uploading.
All pages will perform a refresh automatically every 5 minutes, so there is no need to
refresh on a regular basis unless you have javascript disabled or wish to see the latest data.
(Sunday 26th July 7:40am)
The web site data is back to updating every 5 minutes, 1 minute was too a small an interval for the software
to prepare the data in time for the 1 minute uploads. The station data is logged at 1 minute intervals
The pages still perform a refresh automatically every 5 minutes
(Sunday 16th August 5:00pm)
Been very busy with work lately. I have added a Guestbook link. On the left there. Try it out
(Tuesday 18th August 6:00pm)
Oops!
My webspace 10 Megabyte allowance filled up today causing the images not to update correctly
All is fixed now as I deleted some legacy files (Makes mental note to monitor this situation)
Will probably have to host the site elsewhere soon.
I will send an email when I have worked it out (This is becoming bigger than "Ben-Hur')
(Wednesday 19th August 8:30pm)
Mega Oops!
Email address was wrong and has now been fixed.
Thanks Raoul for the call.
(Saturday 21st August 9:30am)
The graph for August day 20 didn't upload correctly.
This has now been fixed. Click Here.
(Saturday 29th August 9:00am)
The files incorrectly uploaded to the website again.
The site has been down for a couple of hours this morning while I sorted out the problem.
Found it to be the 10Mb server webspace quota is 3/4 used,
probably by an unknown hidden file or files about 7.5Mb in size.
This has been ticketed to Optus 2nd level support for resolution.
Should get a phone call soon.
Anyhow the whole site has been moved to a different location for now.
I have put up redirects and changed all the links that I can think of.
If I missed anything please let me know.
(Sunday 20th September 11:00am)
A couple of weeks ago the weather display software crashed early morning.
So I decided to ditch it as it is so complicated and dedicate Cumulus to the station
I am slowly working on the web pages to personalise them and add more features.
If you have any suggestions or find something wrong, please let me know
Ok, added twitter, guestbook & blog links to the navigation bar and placed it towards the top of the pages
Haven't added the page auto refresh code to the pages yet so just hit F5 to reload for now.
(Get that done later. Have been told I'm spending way too much time in here. lol))
I have also found the wooden louvered pantry doors that I was keeping a eye out for, so as
soon as I can devote some time to it I'll get the Single Stevenson Screen built.
(Sunday 18th October 11:00am)
Everything seems to be chuffing along quite nicely.
(Tuesday 29th December 2009 10:00am)
Well, I finally built the Stevenson Screen and set it in position.
When I put the sensor inside, closed the door and monitored the temperature
I was very pleased with the results. A 2°C drop. See the graph below.
Update
(Friday 31th January 2014 10:00am)
Well, It's been 3 years since my last update
Apart from battery changes and the odd glitch with interference to the received
signal from the transmitter outside in the screen everything has been looking after itself.
I did extend the tail on the wind vane some time ago and recently
it fell off, so I must take down the mast and carry out some maintainence
Cheers for now. Gerard.
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