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Weather Station Hardware => Weather Station Pictures => Topic started by: JohnN on January 06, 2017, 09:22:13 PM
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For Christmas, I got a new Vantage Pro 2 Plus to replace my Vantage Vue. Here are some pictures of my installation. The lower box is where I shoved all the electrical stuff for the rain gauge heater and the box on the pole is an outlet and switch to turn on the heater. The anemometer is mounted at about 21 ft. In the future, I'd like to get a tower or something to mount it at the proper 10 m. The main pole used to be used for a satellite dish. It's not going anywhere because it is set in about 4 ft of concrete. Trust me, everything is more level than it looks in my pictures.
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Here's some more pictures.
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Looks like a job well done! Nice Christmas gift to receive too.
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Thanks! When your dad is a retired union electrician, you can bet the electrical work will be quality work. It certainly was a great gift. Maybe next year will be a 30 ft tower...
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Just for reference, here is the old weather station with the old satellite dish.
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=D>
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Looks good. Great job on the install.
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Just curious - How big a pad do you have that mast in?
And it DOES look great!
George
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The anemometer mast is actually just resting on the ground. The original satellite post seems sturdy enough to keep it from moving much at all. So far it has held up to 20 mph wind gusts nicely without much shaking at all. I'm going to keep an eye on it to make sure it stays nice and steady.
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Those 10' dishes have a good base. I use to install them on the side back in the day.
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Very nice installation!
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I can now confirm that my installation is snowproof. We got 7.0" of snow yesterday, a lot of which stuck to my weather station. It made for some nice pictures, though. I wonder how much the snow messed with the solar and UV sensor readings. I tried to brush them clean a little bit, but didn't want to touch the sensors so some snow had to be left.
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Looks good, John! Yes, that satellite dish footing should hold *well*...that's a BIG chunk of cement in the ground!
Ed
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Nice setup... :grin: You will enjoy your Davis, very reliable and accurate. I have been running mine since 2012, Birthday present from the Wife and Kids. Started out with a Oregon Scientific WMR 968 in 2009. It went through TH's like butter. The only issues I have had w/ my VP2+ is the 24hr FARS, I got tired of replacing it and put in a 9VDC electric fan and upgraded my TH sensor to a SHT31.
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I can now confirm that my installation is snowproof. We got 7.0" of snow yesterday, a lot of which stuck to my weather station. It made for some nice pictures, though. I wonder how much the snow messed with the solar and UV sensor readings. I tried to brush them clean a little bit, but didn't want to touch the sensors so some snow had to be left.
Now all you need John is a rain bucket heater. Nice having precip totals when it snows. I installed a heater on my and love it but I also report prcip to CoCoRaHS and measure my precip the old fashion way from a snowboard.
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Hi Jester,
Just letting you know the WU flash you're using on website no longer works or supported by most browsers.
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I can now confirm that my installation is snowproof. We got 7.0" of snow yesterday, a lot of which stuck to my weather station. It made for some nice pictures, though. I wonder how much the snow messed with the solar and UV sensor readings. I tried to brush them clean a little bit, but didn't want to touch the sensors so some snow had to be left.
Now all you need John is a rain bucket heater. Nice having precip totals when it snows. I installed a heater on my and love it but I also report prcip to CoCoRaHS and measure my precip the old fashion way from a snowboard.
Funny you should mention that as that is one of the reasons I wanted a VP2. It seems like the heater may not be too accurate, though. It seems like it makes a lot of snow evaporate before being measured. As for CoCoRaHS, if you look at my 3rd picture, you can just barely see my CoCoRaHS gauge and snowboards, marked with orange flags. As nice as my new station is, I just don't trust it to give me accurate precip data. Can't beat the old fashioned method.
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Funny you should mention that as that is one of the reasons I wanted a VP2. It seems like the heater may not be too accurate, though. It seems like it makes a lot of snow evaporate before being measured. As for CoCoRaHS, if you look at my 3rd picture, you can just barely see my CoCoRaHS gauge and snowboards, marked with orange flags. As nice as my new station is, I just don't trust it to give me accurate precip data. Can't beat the old fashioned method.
Same here, I'm seeing 35-40% under count with snow using heater. I spent some money on aftermarket setup TE rain bucket and heater thinking it would help but it didn't. Wetter snows accuracy is better but the dry snow stuff its way off.
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This was really dry snow. We got 7.0", and it was only 0.45" liquid equivalent (a 15.5:1 ratio). The VP2 only recorded 0.26". I don't really care that much because I don't even pay much attention to my automated rainfall measurements. I always look at my CoCoRaHS records. I do like having the heater, though, because 0.26" is still better than 0".
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Exactly what I'm seeing. .45-40%=.27
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Thanks! When your dad is a retired union electrician, you can bet the electrical work will be quality work. It certainly was a great gift. Maybe next year will be a 30 ft tower...
I understand why a electrician is important, but why a union electrician?
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The union part isn't really that important. It's just that he was a union electrician, so that's why I said it. I'm sure non-union electricians do quality work as well.
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Have you thought about NOT having to traipse out into the snow to turn the Rain Bucket heater on? Maybe adding an X10 remote ON/OFF power switch...or something similar?
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Have you thought about NOT having to traipse out into the snow to turn the Rain Bucket heater on? Maybe adding an X10 remote ON/OFF power switch...or something similar?
I use a Aeon Labs DSC06106-ZWUS - Z-Wave Smart Energy Switch as part of my SmartThings system. Same idea, different system (I used X10 for years, but have migrated to Z-wave).
I also have a temperature controller that senses ambient temperature and shuts the heater transformer off at temperatures above 35°F or so. In the winter I leave the Z-wave switch on all the time and let the temperature controller handle it.
Of course both controllers are on the 110VAC side of the power supply, not the 24V side.
Greg H.
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Have you thought about NOT having to traipse out into the snow to turn the Rain Bucket heater on? Maybe adding an X10 remote ON/OFF power switch...or something similar?
I use a Aeon Labs DSC06106-ZWUS - Z-Wave Smart Energy Switch as part of my SmartThings system. Same idea, different system (I used X10 for years, but have migrated to Z-wave).
I also have a temperature controller that senses ambient temperature and shuts the heater transformer off at temperatures above 35°F or so. In the winter I leave the Z-wave switch on all the time and let the temperature controller handle it.
Of course both controllers are on the 110VAC side of the power supply, not the 24V side.
Greg H.
Yep, that's what I was heading for...
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Have you thought about NOT having to traipse out into the snow to turn the Rain Bucket heater on? Maybe adding an X10 remote ON/OFF power switch...or something similar?
I usually turn it on before the snow starts, but that might not be a bad idea. I'm usually out there every hour measuring snow, but a remote switch would probably help me remember to turn off the heater when the snow stops. Thanks for the suggestion. I have 120V at the pole, so that wouldn't be a problem.
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Hi Jester,
Just letting you know the WU flash you're using on website no longer works or supported by most browsers.
Thanks for the heads up ValintineWeather...WU Sucks. I'm getting ready to look for another means of displaying real time weather. WU has become unreliable for Rapid Fire.