Topic: WeatherLink Wind Errors & Virtual VP

[vaughanweather]

Hello,

I'm new to the forum as a registered user but I've been a regular visitor coming to dig up data from searching threads. This is the first time I've ever been so puzzled I just can't find a possible cause or solution to a new problem.

Recently on my website the Davis Hi Windspeed 24 hour chart has been showing data drops when in fact there should be none since Weather Display and VP Live don't show these losses either.

Here is a sample of my wind chart http://twitpic.com/8surqb showing the drops in data.

The only new piece of software I've added was a USB UPS manager from CyberPower for their home series of backup systems. I was wondering if perhaps there was some sort of data conflict between the USB data logger connection and the UPS?

I'm running a wireless anemometer connector to a VP2 console and the missing data only shows up the davis log as a minute or two of 0 wind and high winds values.

Has anyone else run into anything of the sort? My exact setup is visible here, http://www.vaughanweather.com/wxstation/about.html - and I generally do not have any other data losses of any sort or prolonged connection failures at all.

Any hints or suggestions would be great.

Regards,
Tom

[vaughanweather]

Well the oddest thing happened after posting this thread, yesterday was the first day where a 24 hour period went by without any errors occurring. The only difference has been that the temperatures for the first time in a while went into the mid to upper teens (mid to upper 50's F) since December which was also when the first errors started to occur.

I'm beginning to think it is not a computer/software issue but rather a temperature/remote transmitter issue between the Davis VP2 console and the anemometer. I'm not sure how the Davis hardware works but the transmitter may be jumping between lithium backup power and the built in solar cell & battery resulting in a brief wireless re-syncing and a 2 minute data hole that shows up on the graph as a 0 / dead spot. Although the fast looping feature of VirtualVP might also effect WeatherLink but no real strange errors are occurring in the logs and I have the setting where it allows WeatherLink to download the logs shut off since both WeatherLink & everything else are always running & using separate virtual ports with WeatherLink automatically downloading/polling data at 1 hour intervals from the console.

Oddly enough I also don't see any holes in the Weather Display data or Cumulus data fields. I'm not sure if these programs can buffer out or pad the data but that might be reason there is no visible loss.

So it might very well be an issue of cold temperatures & limited sunlight. Right now the transmitter pack faces due south with no obstructions but the solar cell is vertically aligned. I think I'll just bend a bracket to 45° and mount the transmitter pack to it so the solar panel is at least facing the sun more directly, especially in the winter months!

I'll keep watching to see what happens.

I'm surprised no one else has had this issue it seems. Always a first I guess

Tom

[Bushman]

Have you browsed the data in WL?  What does it show?

[vaughanweather]

WeatherLinks shows wind values of 00 for speed and high speed. All the other data is okay.

It seems like WeatherDisplay, Cumulus & VPLive buffer out this data since it is not missing but the values are usually reduced when the dropout occurs.

I went through the logs for VirtualVP and could not find any weird errors. I also turned off fast looping which made no difference.

Now that there have been some warm & cold spells it seems the errors only occur when the temperature falls below freezing for more than 6 hours, as long as the temperature is at or above freezing there are no dropouts reported. So it is certainly something internal to the transmitter and not the receiver or software. Although it would be nice if Davis had the option to buffer out missing data.

Tom