POLL - FARS with Davis VP / VP2 stations?

[Old Tele man]

While reading the earlier posting, "Question about FARS," it piqued my curiousity as to how many people weren't totally happy with their Davis FARS units to the point that they:

A) Upgraded what they already had, ie: FARS(day) to FARS(24-hr) or FARS(AC)

B) Modified what they already had, ie: additional or larger solar panel; no FARS to DIY

C) DIY fabricated their own solar- or AC-powered FARS, ie: no FARS to "DIY" FARS; higher capacity fan, solar panel or battery(s), etc..


Staring blankly into my AMF™ 3-holed "Crystal Ball" I foresee an upturn in the sales of fans, schottky-diodes, rechargeable batteries, and solar panels...do you?

[moehoward4]

I have a regular DFARS on my VP2, thinking about making it 24 HR. I also have a homemade DFARS , solar powered, that is in use with a 6332 set up as a Temp. station.     EDIT  I could only vote once, for the stock DFARS, but count me for DIY also.

[jerryg]

I have done all of them. 

[SLOweather]

I voted "built own", but with an asterisk...

I don't have a FARS of any sort on my ISS. It's generally windy enough that we might need one only a week out of the year.

OTOH, a while back I built an experimental Davis based fan forced dry bulb/wet bulb psychrometer. For that, I used a soil/leaf station, 2 temp probes and a Tee shirt hem for wicking, a 7714 radiation shield, and a 12v fan from a PC or something.

I needed more CFM from the fan to cool the wet bulb than a FARS would need. It seems like it could cost a lot less than the $135 that Davis wants for the DFARS kit to get a 12 volt "battery maintainer" panel (saw one on Northern Tool 1.8 watts for $15.00) and buy or scrounge a 12 volt fan. Jameco has one 5.8 CFM for $4.95, 1.1 watts.

NOTE: I pulled those items off the net as a sort of an engineering exercise. They may be too closely matched for the panel to drive the fan in anything but direct sunlight. But, you see how inexpensively it might be done.

Now, that electronic psychrometer project has been disassembled and repurposed to other things.

[smorris]

I' pick "none of the above" if it were a choice. I had read through several threads advising that you couldn't update to the 24 hour FARS, so if you think you'll need it, get it up front. So I bought the VP2 w/24hr FARS from the get go.

Steve

[smorris]

...done! Now you've got something to pick.

[SLOweather]

FWIW, if there had been a "My station doesn't have a FARS of any sort, I would have voted that instead, as it's more accurate than my posted hack.

[Curly]

Added the day FARS.

When installed according to the instructions, the average fan working time in the summer is about 9am till 3pm.
I've wired in the left over solar panel and pointed it towards the west. Now the duration is about 9am till almost to sunset.

[dalecoy]

While reading the earlier posting, "Question about FARS," it piqued my curiousity as to how many people weren't totally happy with their Davis FARS units to the point that they:

I'm not sure what your poll is going to reveal. 

I am totally happy with the Davis FARS unit that I purchased to add on to my cabled VP2.  Of course, it came with a solar panel, but (as I planned) since I already have a cabled, it was really easy to just add a cabled power source for the FARS.  So, I planned it to be a 24-hour FARS add-on. 

In other words, I'm not at all unhappy.