Topic: Vantage Vue Console logger pinout

[DeKay]

First of all I would like to thank DeKay for his excellent work.

I made my solution in such a way, that it does WiFy: this little small excellent module

You are welcome, and thanks for sharing yours!  This is a superb solution.

It looks like Digikey has the board and the module for anybody else who wants to give this a shot.

[linuxfreak]

Hey Dekay, did you look at the data sheet??    I think I see a Davis ISS replacement in the works!  That module is a 32bit SPARC uP, 7 AD sensor ports, and can go low power mode between transmissions to save power.... 3.3Volt! 

Looking like a Wi-Fi replacement for the 928MHz FHSS transmitter. Maybe an upgrade for the VP1 weak ISS?

George

[DeKay]

Looking like a Wi-Fi replacement for the 928MHz FHSS transmitter. Maybe an upgrade for the VP1 weak ISS?

Let me know when you've got the design done 

[Andiadm]

I think I see a Davis ISS replacement in the works! 

To be honest, I though about that as well 

At the end, the quality of a weather station is 99% the sensors, and mostly the ones with the best sensors are not the best ones IT wise. If one could find out which analog signal these sensors are producing, it would be about time to hook them up to something else than the ISS to transmit these values to something else than a Davis console.

[Bushman]

One thing to keep in mind is that by switching to 2.4 gHz you will lose a ton of range.  Cypress makes a nice certified 900 spread spectrum chip/module

[Flag]

I think I see a Davis ISS replacement in the works! 

To be honest, I though about that as well 

At the end, the quality of a weather station is 99% the sensors, and mostly the ones with the best sensors are not the best ones IT wise. If one could find out which analog signal these sensors are producing, it would be about time to hook them up to something else than the ISS to transmit these values to something else than a Davis console.

Yes this is so true and one problem when connecting sensors with different types of loggers that people want to use based on something the IT department has set in stone and further based on so called company standards, security and punching holes in firewalls.

And this is where many of the other high end logger manufacturers have short sighted vision as non wireless systems generally only have a single output stream.   

[vellecadp]

First of all I would like to thank DeKay for his excellent work.

The wireing I did using these

They have the 2.0mm pitch and you only need to remove the little nose at the side and it fits quite well.

Can you advise what cable/connector assembly you are using and where you obtained the assembly?

I have tried assembling my kit of parts and the connector is the biggest issue I have and have not had success in getting communications with my rig.  I would like to try this if possible.

Thanks,

Dennis

[Bushman]

Looks to me like a regular hard drive ribbon cable.  Cool idea.

[SLOweather]

Looks to me like a regular hard drive ribbon cable.  Cool idea.

An HD cable won't work, at least not directly. The HD cable is standard 0.10" pin spacing, the Vue and VP spacing is 2mm. The OP mentions that it is 2mm spacing

[DeKay]

At the end, the quality of a weather station is 99% the sensors, and mostly the ones with the best sensors are not the best ones IT wise. If one could find out which analog signal these sensors are producing, it would be about time to hook them up to something else than the ISS to transmit these values to something else than a Davis console.

There is less analog than you'd think.  It is a digital interface to the temperature / humidity sensor (some details here).  The wind speed and rain bucket are reed switches.  Analog comes down to the wind direction (a 20K potentiometer) and the pressure sensor.  The latter is the only thing I've been able to find much detail about.  The one in my console is unmarked, but maybe wxtech has been able to dig up some details on this thing?

[Bushman]

Looks to me like a regular hard drive ribbon cable.  Cool idea.

An HD cable won't work, at least not directly. The HD cable is standard 0.10" pin spacing, the Vue and VP spacing is 2mm. The OP mentions that it is 2mm spacing

I have a half dozen 2mm spacing cables in my  kit that says you are wrong.  Several are from 2.5" IDE devices to attach to MBs.

[johnd]

Analog comes down to the wind direction (a 20K potentiometer)...

No, you're thinking of the VP2 anemometer. The Vue has a Hall Effect direction sensor. Granted, this may still effectively be interfaced as an analogue device - I'm not really sure about the design details of interfacing such a sensor. But I guess that most non-switch-based sensors are still analogue in their actual sensing element, even if the interface to downstream circuitry, ie after some initial on-chip preprocessing of the raw signal, is digital.

[adnadeau]

DeKay and AF4EX/John:  I think you two did a great job of solving the interface dilemma.  Thanks to both of you.  I've been following this thread since it started.

I used AF4EX's connection method with a few changes; I used liquid electrical tape instead of tubing.  If I were going to do it again, I'd use a glue gun to tie the two headers together.  The Xbees work just fine.  Now to look more closely at that WiFi module...

DeKay:  If you look closely at your sensor picture you can see some writing in the upper right corner of the module.  Looks like M5535C or one of its siblings.  http://www.meas-spec.com/product/t_product.aspx?id=5029

Alan

[DeKay]

DeKay:  If you look closely at your sensor picture you can see some writing in the upper right corner of the module.  Looks like M5535C or one of its siblings.  http://www.meas-spec.com/product/t_product.aspx?id=5029

Alan

 

Thanks so much Alan!  Great find!  You know, I seem to remember Googling around to ID this part, but I came up empty.  I must have been using the other number on there (serial number) and either didn't think to try or didn't notice the other number.

I looked up your link and the description didn't sound quite right.  So I pulled out the original high-res pic and can see that it is actually 5534CM.  Applications include "Weather control systems" according to its product page (man, I'd love to be able to control the weather). Here is its product page, here is where you can buy it, and here is some Arduino code to drive it!

The cool thing about this part is that it has a digital interface rather than an analog one I had originally guessed at.  It also is factory calibrated.  Davis was smart and kept things simple: the amount of A/D they have to do in the console is exactly zero.  But there seems to be a price to pay for this simplicity: $27.27 for a single piece, to be exact.  Good thing they are cheaper by the 1,000 

[C5250]

There is less analog than you'd think.  It is a digital interface to the temperature / humidity sensor (some details here).  The wind speed and rain bucket are reed switches.  Analog comes down to the wind direction (a 20K potentiometer) and the pressure sensor.  The latter is the only thing I've been able to find much detail about.  The one in my console is unmarked, but maybe wxtech has been able to dig up some details on this thing?

This actually depends upon the vintage.

I believe Davis switch to the Sensirion digital temp/hum sensor around 2007, before then there where separate analog temperature and humidity sensors. With all the pics you have, I'm sure you must have noticed the "missing devices". This is a big part of the reason the firmware is so bloated by now, it has to support all the various sensor types that have been used over the years. Not to mention three different LCD's.

[DanITman]

Has anyone probed the data port on the ISS that connects to the wired counsel.  I'm wondering if this interface can be tapped into directly instead of having to use the counsel.

Thanks

[C5250]

It's a standard serial connection, so it's possible. The problem would be that the DavisTalk protocol is not publicly documented, so there is no easy way to decode the data.

[DanITman]

It's a standard serial connection, so it's possible. The problem would be that the DavisTalk protocol is not publicly documented, so there is no easy way to decode the data.

I wonder if WL software can decipher this DavisTalk when hooked directly to the ISS.  I might try this when I get home in a week.

[Shane8813]

I would like to start off by apologizing. I'm not sure if it's the appropriate place for this post. I am new to this forum. I have spent the last 3 days reading all your members post and I Would Like Thank Everyone for all the trial and errors and sacrifices you made so we can better understand things. Ok, I'll make it brief. I just purchased Davis Vantage VUE and absolutely love it. Wife was not so happy about the price. Anyway, I am a huge electronics fan and know a lot about  functions and features of electronics,but I have no clue about the inner workings of such sophisticated equipment. I do not want to spend $150 for the data logger if I don't have to. I would rather use optional software. I read on one of the post that some one might start making some and selling them. Do you know of anyone? I'm wanting to expand all the capabilities of this unit for a fraction of the price of course. Thanks For Your Time. I'm looking forward to keep reading on. Just getting into the hobby.

[af4ex]

I would like to start off by apologizing. I'm not sure if it's the appropriate place for this post. I am new to this forum. I have spent the last 3 days reading all your members post and I Would Like Thank Everyone for all the trial and errors and sacrifices you made so we can better understand things. Ok, I'll make it brief. I just purchased Davis Vantage VUE and absolutely love it. Wife was not so happy about the price. Anyway, I am a huge electronics fan and know a lot about  functions and features of electronics,but I have no clue about the inner workings of such sophisticated equipment. I do not want to spend $150 for the data logger if I don't have to. I would rather use optional software. I read on one of the post that some one might start making some and selling them. Do you know of anyone? I'm wanting to expand all the capabilities of this unit for a fraction of the price of course. Thanks For Your Time. I'm looking forward to keep reading on. Just getting into the hobby.

Hi Shane,
Welcome to the Davis WX Forum! You are in the right place if you're looking for an inexpensive, 'do it yourself' serial interface (with emphasis on "DIY") for your Davis station. For about $20 or so you can build a wired cable with an FTDI or equivalent "USB-to-COM" interface device. Either the completely home-brew cable, which I built on page 1 of this post. Or the modified Sparkfun/AdaFruit cable described on page 7, which a few have built already.

Or for about $60 or so you can build the wirless, XBee-powered interface (which I've been using successfully for months now).

The hardest part of both these approaches is the connection to the "non-standard" 2mm pitch, 20-pin connector on the Davis port. There are commerical plugs available but they're a bit pricey for us DIY'ers.

I was thinking about designing a ready-made PCB but it's turned out to be more difficult than I thought with the little spare time I have now.

If you're handy with a soldering iron and have already built some electronic circuits then the DIY ideas in this post should be no big problem for you. We'll help you trouble-shoot if you run into problems.

HTH,
John/af4ex

[C5250]

I wonder if WL software can decipher this DavisTalk when hooked directly to the ISS.  I might try this when I get home in a week.

No. WL only uses the standard serial commands to obtain the translated data from a console/Envoy.

[SLOweather]

I read on one of the post that some one might start making some and selling them. Do you know of anyone?

I have another thread gong about this. I have received the parts to produce 20 boards. 100 boards were ordered last Thursday, and are slated to ship today. I hope to receive the boards sometime later this week.

Then I'll build up one for immediate testing, and then a few more to distribute at cost to the original respondents for their testing. After that, we'll see about opening up to sales.

[DeKay]

WiFi XBees!

These just came out.  Looks like you can get connectivity between the console and a wireless router for $49.  This is comparable to the price of two serial point-point XBees and much more flexible.  These modules support b/g/n, have their own built in wireless stack, and also have the same LVTTL serial interface as the other XBees.

If, like the current XBee solution, the link is essentially transparent, then wouldn't any current software (such as Weatherlink or Cumulus) that supports a TCP/IP interface "just work"???

I gotta get me one of these...

[af4ex]

@DeKay
> WiFi XBees ...

Yes, very nifty, much greater bandwidth and same board footprint. But how does that help us in interfacing with the 19kb Davis boxes? Which the regular XBees seem to handle perfectly.

I stumbled across another XBee clone, made by Seeed in Hong Kong, called the 'RFBee', which is an 'open source' clone of the regular XBee, i.e. fits in an XBee socket and provides similar functionality.
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/rfbee-v11-wireless-arduino-compatible-node-p-614.html

The modulation scheme is different, so these are not drop-in replacements etc, the RFBees can only talk to each other. The advantage is that they give you the source code for the firmware, which is Arduino based, thus readily accessible to hobbyists. So much greater 'tinkerability' than XBee, which is proprietary, for the same price!

http://garden.seeedstudio.com/index.php?title=RFbee_V1.1_-_Wireless_Arduino_compatible_node

Reading the forum discussions, I gather that the reliability is perhaps not as great as XBee (which I can testify is 'rock solid'). But provides a great opportunity for learning how it works.

John/af4ex

[DeKay]

@DeKay
> WiFi XBees ...
Yes, very nifty, much greater bandwidth and same board footprint. But how does that help us in interfacing with the 19kb Davis boxes? Which the regular XBees seem to handle perfectly.

I was wondering if this would basically work as a serial to wifi adapter, much like the USB to serial converter.  One XBee on the console end and just a computer on the other, communicating through a wireless router.  The XBee seems to take care of bundling the serial bits into TCP/IP packets in its transparent mode.  Page 25 of the product manual says...

When operating in transparent mode, the modules act as a serial line replacement. All
UART data received is queued up for RF transmission. When RF data is received, the
data is sent out through the UART.