Topic: Very disappointed in the new AcuRite 01036 with color display, long story

[Grateful11]

I'm mostly a small time lurker here and have owned an Acurite 01010 weather station for almost 3 years. I've always found it a bit hard to read but has done an fairly admiral job. My brother and I both received the new 01036 weather stations for Christmas from our wives. I there when he opened his up and even though he's retired, like me, he was like a kid on Christmas morning, he's had a 01515 for a couple years and he hasn't had as good a luck with his as I have with 01010, one wind cup got broke off and one other function stopped working.

Anyway his display worked but would only stay lit for about 2 seconds even when connected to the power supply. He called Tech. support Thursday and they're sending him a new display in about a month, they're backordered. My display will not power up at all batteries or otherwise. I checked the batteries one at time, all new BTW, and they are fine. I checked the power supply and it's putting out 6.7 volts, my brothers is putting out 6.5 volts, it's rated at 4.5V, seems a bit high to me. Anyway my current 01010 station only needs an ambient temperature fan, seems to have bad bearings, so for around $22 for the single solar panel or $35 for the new dual solar panel replacement I should be back in business. I would like to keep my old one as it was a Father's Day gift from my two sons one of which has since passed away and it was the last 'physical' gift I received from him, I'm sure you folks understand why I'd like to keep the old one going. My plan was to position the older unit near my woodworking shed and put the new one where the old one is. Now that I know of at least two bad units right out of the box I'm thinking of sending the entire weather station back for a refund. It seems they may have a manufacturing problem. I searched the forum for 01036 and didn't find anything. What's the consensus on these new color units on here?

I've been a Weather Buff since I was old enough to write and that was quite a while ago. I'll try to get around doing a member introduction soon.

[SlowModem]

I think you should get a refund on the new station that is obviously bad.  Not knowing your situation or budget, I would recommend getting a Davis station.  They are quality stations and have excellent Tech Support and Customer Service, and parts are plentiful and easily obtainable.  It will cost more, but in my opinion, having had several lower-priced stations, they're well worth it.

Good luck! 

[Grateful11]

Well I'm on my second Display and it's bad too. I honestly believe they sent back the same one I sent in, displays nothing but 1's and 8's and no backlight just like the first one. I know I waited way too long to send the display back for exchange but that's history now. They told me it would be April before I received my replacement but it came today, less than 2 weeks turn around, and I could tell it was not new, no peel off protectors on the display, just wrapped in bubble-wrap and stuffed in a box. I don't know what kind company these people are trying to run but when my wife gets through with Monday I feel sorry for them. She bought it for me for Christmas and is really pi..ed at this point. My brother got his replaced without even sending the first one back until he received the new one and the new one seems to be working fine.

[jonkjon]

I have the 01035 unit and have learned to live with the display backlight turned off to solve many of it's shortcomings. I tried to get an upgrade to the new color display, but that ain't happening.
The Davis stations are very nice. I managed one where I used to work and I have several friends that own them. However, even for the vantage vue, the cost is nearly 5 times the cost of these units. I had an OS wmr200 for almost 5 years that was decent. I had to do a lot of tweaking to get it right but it did serve me well. It was around 250.00 and you could add quite a few sensors to it. I was overall, fairly happy with it after much tweaking.
The Acurite sensors seem to be decent but they need some help. The solution for me, as it was with the OS unit, was to use Weather Display software. It gives you so much granular control over the sensors, that unless they are just completely whacked, you can get pretty accurate reporting from many stations. Brian has been very receptive to improvements to Weather Display and I highly recommend it. I would like to see some more options for adding in extra sensors with WD and hopefully, that will come with time. For me, it has made my Acurite "AllRite" for now.