Topic: Davis VP2/Vue/Envoy Serial cable prototype interest thread

[K3JAE]

Was just wondering if you are still issuing out the prototype for testing as would be interested... still.

[SLOweather]

Was just wondering if you are still issuing out the prototype for testing as would be interested... still.

Yes I still have a few available. Email sent with purchase link.

[SLOweather]

Again, thanks again to SLO for his hard work as well as the other contributors for the pin-out investigation!

SLO - you got a winner!

Dennis

Thanks Dennis!

[K3JAE]

Thanks Slo...

Will pick this up later this week once we get the money up... should be Friday. Please reserve one for me.

Also, as an inquiry since did not get an answer previous... Can the Serial end be put through to a Serial to USB cable... using the Prolific driver?

[Weather Display]

Can the Serial end be put through to a Serial to USB cable

my 2 cents worth:
that should work OK

[SLOweather]

Thanks Slo...

Will pick this up later this week once we get the money up... should be Friday. Please reserve one for me.

I have lotsa parts. I can always make one. But right now, I think I have 6 kitted up, ready to go.

Also, as an inquiry since did not get an answer previous... Can the Serial end be put through to a Serial to USB cable... using the Prolific driver?

Dunno for sure about the Prolific driver, but I use an ATEN GUC232A Serial-USB adapter for all of my testing of built units. No reason I know of a different one would not work.

[BigD]

Testing went well today, VVP ran all night serving data from the VP2 via the Serial Cable interface to Weatherlink 5.83 and Weather Display 10.37Q build 50.

Occasionally on restart Weather display would not autostart reading data as it would try to read the data logger.  Brian from Weather Display replied:

     you should be able to abort the data logger window
     then go to control panel, data logger setup
     and turn the switch off there

     or change the setting direct in the wdisplay.ini file
     [Extract the vp data at startup]
     use=

Once I changed the INI file WD worked without a hitch. 

change that to no
and save that settings file
(when WD is not running)

After Two days of testing I don't find anything (other than the lack of memory) that differs from the Davis logger vs Chris' new Serial prototype! 
I even queried the console via weatherlink for the Alarm status and battery condition it worked perfectly.  Well Done Chris!

[SLOweather]

Thanks for the detailed report BigD! I'll have to make a FAQ/Support page for the unit and include that info.

I sent out 3 yesterday, including 2 overseas, and one today to a dealer for critique. After K3JAE's purchase and any others this week, I'll close tester sales, review the comments and suggestions, and see about opening real sales.

[BigD]

Testing Update...

Ran my test station setup, Startwatch/VVP/WeatherLink 5.83/Weather Display 10.37Q Build 50 for the last two days, everything seemed fine except... 

I Noticed the Monthly Rain and Yearly rain is not registering on the Weather Link weather bulletin?     Rain amounts show up fine in the weather data when browsing the station just not on the bulletin screen. 

Not sure why this is happening..but another forum member believes the WL data logger may have something to do with updating the bulletin, something for other testers to look out for maybe?



 

[Bob from Kansas]

And now it is my turn to provide testing data.

Like some others I'm testing the product on a different computer than is used for my everyday weather needs.

This one is a homebuilt Win 7 64 bit system, without a serial port.

The USB to Serial port cable I'm using is from ATEN
 http://www.aten-usa.com/?product&cat=795&Item=UC232A

Now oddly enough neither the VWS and Cumulus software had any problems with station recognition or the data feed.  However the Weatherlink software turned into being the odd man out. 

Not really any sort of a big deal as the cable I'm using is now so old I no longer can recall when I purchased it. Also at the time of its purchase it was for the programming of a handheld police scanner as I was out of available serial ports.  And it still works with the scanner and related software.

In going back to the WL software it sort of thinks something is there but can't quite resolve the problem,  If I do the Autoscan routine it will stop on the right port for quite some time and then decide there isn't something there afterall, and if do the Test routine it runs all the way to the end of the timeout period before giving up.

I've tried 2 different USB ports as sometimes that can make a difference.

In any event the product is a winner and the above information is as much as anything to let others know that it is probably best to avoid that particular ATEN cable, which is still in production.

Bob

[K3JAE]

Slo...

Payment sent... now eagerly awaiting the item!!!!

[Bob from Kansas]

After installing a long ago retired serial card (made by Lava) it now seems as though the Weatherlink software is the problem, not the cable.

With the serial card installed once again both Cumulus & VWS work with nary a problem, with Weatherlink (Version 5.93) still not wanting to cooperate.

I've unistalled WL and then reinstalled it via the Admin option, which only eliminated that as the problem.  So best guess at this point is that the Davis product does not like to play along with 64 bit systems, or at least mine anyway.

On the outside chance it was version 5.93 that was the culprit I removed it and tried to install an older version of WL, however something somewhere is telling the install package that the newer one is still in place and it will not let me downgrade.

Most of this now is veering way off the original topic, but wanted to clear things up on ATEN cable being a potential problem with this product.

Bob

[Bushman]

WL runs fine on WIn 7 32 AND 64 bit.  At least on my machines.

[Bob from Kansas]

WL runs fine on Win 7 32 AND 64 bit.  At least on my machines.

And I figured someone would tell me that.

Did you do anything out of the ordinary when you installed WL, as to where the folders landed....or some other oddness rather than a straight install.

And are you on the latest version of WL or some previous one. 

[SLOweather]

I'd like to thank all of the testers for their work and notes on the operation of the serial adapter I developed.

I'd also like to go on record as saying that if it doesn't work with WeatherLink, that's about the one program I can't try to support. Davis has their own interface and logger, and they are generally sold as a unit. I don't want to encourage the piracy or unauthorized use of WeatherLink by means of using this device, and thereby incur the wrath of Davis.

Chris

[SLOweather]

Slo...

Payment sent... now eagerly awaiting the item!!!!

It'll be shipped USPS tomorrow, Monday. Thanks!

[Bushman]

WL runs fine on Win 7 32 AND 64 bit.  At least on my machines.

And I figured someone would tell me that.

Did you do anything out of the ordinary when you installed WL, as to where the folders landed....or some other oddness rather than a straight install.

And are you on the latest version of WL or some previous one. 

Tried it with 5.8.3 and 5.9.n  Installs at root with Admin on Win 7 64 bit Home premium and pro.  So nothing fancy.

[Bob from Kansas]

Same install here.

Wonder if it has something to do that I'm trying to do the initial setup without using the Datalogger.

One would not think so, however when two other pieces of similar software function without a problem, and only this one is really expecting to see that particular piece of hardware/firmware as part of the overall initial setup perhaps there is some sort of special handshake initially involved among the three pieces of equipment that would make up the data train.

I'll have to carve out some time to move some hardware around and see if that changes the results.  Although I'm not quite sure why I'm spending time on this problem as I rarely use WL for anything anyway and if needed it does work on the other system which has a VP2 console with the logger in place.

[Weather Display]

are you not able to set WL to the needed port type and data logger type and then set it to work with those settings?
(i.e skip the auto detect)?

[Bob from Kansas]

No problem setting the port, and have verified the 4 different ports I've taken a run at are active and have the ability to receive data from both VWS & Cumulus.  Ports tried at this point are 2,6,7,& 8.

The software tries hard to find the station, but eventually times out.

Then if I do use the auto detect routine the software will stop on port(s) where I've earlier confirmed the station to be, but will then just time out.

Parity & Bits in the port setup area are all at defaults, although I vaguely recall that at one time WL wanted to see something else, but I think that was back in the old Weather Monitor 2 days so I'm guessing those sort of oddities have long since been resolved.

As I said this is not any particularly big deal for me.  Mostly it is just curiosity on why it won't work, when in theory it certainly should...hence my earlier comment about wondering if WL needs to see the Datalogger when it is first configured.

[Bushman]

I've fired up  WL and used .wlk files to simulate a connection.  I do not think the logger has to be installed.

[Bob from Kansas]

Did give me an idea to try, which was to copy the entire file structure from a known good install to this computer. Alas though the result was the same, which I guess was to be expected as no registery entries would come along for the ride.

[K3JAE]

Slo...

Payment sent... now eagerly awaiting the item!!!!

It'll be shipped USPS tomorrow, Monday. Thanks!

Got USPS notification of shipment.  ~watering at the mouth awaiting the new toy to arrive...~ 

[Bob from Kansas]

For those still following along on this thread I guess I have an update.

After trying a dozen or so combinations and permutations and still not being able to access a com port when using WL...even though VWS, Cumulus & HWthr would work I cranked up my favorite search engine and hit the web.

After about 15 minutes I came across the below, which dates back to late 2008.
Hello

Weatherlink should work well with Windows Vista 32-bit. We have only recently tested the current Weatherlink version in a 64-bit environment. The Weatherlink software works well in Windows Vista 64-bit. However, this was done using a dual core 32-bit processor and chip set.

We are fairly confident that the Weatherlink software will not work in a true 64-bit environment, with a 64-bit processor and a 64-bit version of windows. Davis Instruments has no plans to create a 64-bit version of Weatherlink at this time.

Our conclusion is that the requests for such an upgrade to Weatherlink would not justify the cost of development. The real issue is the USB driver. You can download and install a 64-bit version of the driver at www.silabs.com and try it. NO guarantees though.

Rex Knapps
Davis Instruments Technical Support

And this information certainly fits the hardware/software I'm running, which is a 64 bit Intel CPU with an 8 thread capability, along with a board that supports a native 64 bit enviorment, with Win 7 holding it all together.

Now perhaps something in WL has changed since that information was published and it really does now support a full blown 64 bit system. If that is the case then I'm still endeavoring to figure out why mine won't.

Bob

[Bushman]

Which version of W7?  And have you tried to run WL in compatibility mode on your PC?  LOTS of folks are running WL on W7.