Author Topic: Barometer setting for OS WMR100  (Read 1006 times)

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Offline Denpat

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Barometer setting for OS WMR100
« on: April 04, 2019, 09:09:39 AM »
I have been trying for several days to get weewx loaded and running my WMR100 or WMR200 Oregon Scientific weather station.
Everything works well, with the exception of the barometer reading. I can't seem to get the proper setting on the barometer to get it to lock in and report what the display is showing. It seems to continually creep up and in rare occasions creep down. It will be at least .20 high.  It doesn't lock in on a certain number so that I can go in and calibrate it within the software. I really don't know how to explain my situation any further, just hoping someone else has had the same problem and was able to figure it out. Maybe weewx just doesn't want to play with the Oregon Scientific weather stations.

If anyone has a suggestion I would really like to hear it.

Denpat

Offline galfert

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Re: Barometer setting for OS WMR100
« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2019, 12:38:19 PM »
The Oregon WMR-100 and WMR-200 have very low barometer accuracy specifications. It is a fault of the barometric sensor in those models. Nothing is broken. They are working according to design specifications. It doesn't detect changes down to the level of precision that you are looking for. Every WMR-100 and WMR-200 station who's data I look at suffers from the same design issue. The results are that you end up with very jagged graphs that go up and down abruptly by a few millibars or as you noted at least 0.2 inHg.

You can see this right on the specifications stated directly from Oregon Scientific:
https://www.oregonscientificstore.com/p-31-oregon-scientific-wmr200a-professional-weather-station-center.aspx

+- 10 mb = +- 0.3 inHg.  That is a lot of variation and extremely low resolution.

It is no wonder you would have a hard time calibrating such a station. It is impossible for the station to ever seem to be accurate (maybe it is spot on 10% of the time). The best you could hope for with this type of hardware is that your average could be a slim resemblance of the actual barometric pressure and you'd be able track larger trends spanning days but not so well for daily fine details.

For example just look at this Oregon Scientific station and how its blue line that has low precision tracks compared to the red line which is more precise and representative of the actual pressure.
https://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/D1843
(not picking on this station if this is your station...this is just how all WMR-100 and WMR-200 stations work)

As you can see the blue line does not track perfectly with the analysis red line with any OS hardware of that generation (not certain about newer OS stuff). But it is still able to pass MADIS quality checks, because the average and general tracking follows the given trend.

You can compare that to my station that has better barometric sensor yielding beter accuracy and precision, which when properly calibrated it looks like this.
https://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/F3708

You can see the difference in the blue barometric line that a station with a better barometric sensor produces. There is more detail and smaller increments.

Your Oregon Scientific stations are indicative of the types of more affordable stations that were produced quite a few years ago. Newer model stations have better sensors, even new stations that should meet your budget are incredible in comparison. But do your homework before picking a replacement as there are still new stations being sold that don't cut the mustard. There is nothing you can do other than to seek a replacement for a different newer model station.

So there is nothing wrong with WeeWx. It has to do with the quality of data you are feeding it based on the design limitations of your barometric sensor. In the OS example I used the station was using Weather-Display software. And I could have selected a Meteobridge Oregon Scientific station and you would have seen the same poor results. You can look at countless other examples of other station brands/models running off WeeWx, Weather-Display, Meteobridge (like mine) and you would notice great results with higher precision if the hardware sensors are better.

Here is a good station list to work off.  Every time you select a WMR-100 or WMR-200 off this list you will see similar results no matter the software used. Then look at some of the other hardware station brands/models and see which produce nice results. Keep in mind that some stations have broken sensors...so don't look at just one example for each type to make a determination.
https://weather.gladstonefamily.net/cgi-bin/wxequip.pl
« Last Edit: April 04, 2019, 01:10:27 PM by galfert »
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Offline Denpat

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Re: Barometer setting for OS WMR100
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2019, 02:44:25 PM »
Thanks so much for your reply. I do understand that a budget friendly weather station won't give as accurate a reading as a more expensive station will. I don't think I gave you enough information to be of assistance to me. I was hoping someone else had had the same thing happen to them and knew a answer right off the top.

The following information will probably make the situation a lot clearer.

I have a Oregon Scientific WMR100 station and I have 3 different consoles. Two consoles are WMR100's and one is WMR200. I have a WMR200 running on CumulusMX Raspberry Pi 3 and it is rock solid. the barometer is reporting what the console is displaying. I have one WMR100 running on a wondows based Cumulus and it is reporting rock solid information. I also have Weather dispay linux that I have on a raspberry pi and it gives solid data. The WMR100 that I'm running on the weewx is the software that allows the barometer to float all over the place. In the 5 hours I have watched it this morning it has gone from 30.35 to a high of 30.50 and back down to 30.20. It isn't the console because if I run it on other software it reports correctly.
If the station is reporting incorrect data the sofeware should report that number and not go all over the board.

Thanks again for the response

denpat

Offline Denpat

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Re: Barometer setting for OS WMR100
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2019, 04:27:57 PM »
I’m sure the next question will be why not use either of the two Cumulus software versions or the Weather Display, since they are running rock solid. That’s a good question I’m asking my self. It’s just that I have spent so much time on it that I’m determined to make it work. Actually I’ve given up on it several times and keep bringing it out to try again.

Denpat

Offline galfert

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Re: Barometer setting for OS WMR100
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2019, 10:24:49 AM »
Thanks so much for your reply. I do understand that a budget friendly weather station won't give as accurate a reading as a more expensive station will.

That is not what I said. I have a current generation station that is among the least expensive but has reasonably accurate and precise sensor capabilities. So you can have the accuracy and precision today if you upgrade your station with a current generation cost effective model.

I think you need to look at the raw data charts instead of comparing graphs. It is possible that Cumulus and the console are averaging the raw data coming from your station and presenting you with what appears to be more granularity but isn't really there in the data.

But even if Cumulus is doing this for its displayed graphs it certainly isn't doing it for when reporting to CWOP. Look again at this list and this time just focus on all the WMR-100 and WMR-200 stations on this list that are paired up with Cumulus. (24 Cumulus/WMR200 and 15 Cumulus/WMR100)...numbers could change as number of stations come online or go offline...but they will be close to those depending on when this list gets updates.
https://weather.gladstonefamily.net/cgi-bin/wxequip.pl

You'll notice that every single WMR-100 and WMR-200 station (running on Cumulus) have very jagged very not precise barometer data output. It is this way for other software used with the WMR-100 and WMR-200 ....but I'm just wanting to show you that even though Cumulus looks good to you on its local graphs the real data shows otherwise as is evident with all of these stations.

I get what you are saying. I understand that you don't see this on the console nor on Cumulus graphs (probably because they are averaging). But that doesn't mean that the lack of precision isn't there.

So to solve your problem with WeeWx and your station maybe there is a WeeWx setting where you can turn on some sort of barometric averaging rather than having it default to raw live data. Realize that this is just window dressing and that the lack of precision is still there even when averaging is enable (if it's possible).

There is just no getting around the fact that the barometric sensor in your station was not designed to give you the precision output that you seek without some tricks that only somewhat cover up its deficiencies. With averaging enabled it will be slower to react to changes and you'll have smoother slopes that lack detail.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2019, 10:34:35 AM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
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Offline Denpat

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Re: Barometer setting for OS WMR100
« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2019, 07:58:55 PM »
I finally got this figured out by a process of elimination. It was as simple as not having the complete model number in the conf. file. My station was a WMR100 and the software was looking for WMR100N. Its working well now.

Offline Denpat

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Re: Barometer setting for OS WMR100
« Reply #6 on: April 06, 2019, 08:00:06 PM »
Thanks galfert for your input. It was appreciated.

Denpat

Offline galfert

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Re: Barometer setting for OS WMR100
« Reply #7 on: April 06, 2019, 08:02:20 PM »
Glad you found a solution you are happy with.
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
Tele-Pole

 

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