Author Topic: Ecowitt WH2320E help.  (Read 2589 times)

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Offline northernbrucewx

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Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« on: November 19, 2019, 11:34:00 AM »
Hi everyone, first-time poster.

I used to have an Accurite weather station but since they stopped supporting the hub earlier this year I ended up giving up on my weather station/website.

This past summer I picked up an Ecowitt WH2320E unit. I set it all up and started transmitting data to WU.

I am now launching my website (https://northernbruceweather.com) using Wordpress and the plugin Weather Station (https://weather.station.software). I am currently using a "virtual station" using OpenWeatherMap API.

I guess my question is, is there a way to create clientraw.txt, or realtime.txt files using this new Ecowitt unit so I can display my actual PWS data?

Hope that makes sense,

Have a great day.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2019, 11:38:05 AM by northernbrucewx »

Offline galfert

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Re: Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2019, 01:30:58 PM »
Welcome!

I would recommend investing on an Ecowitt GW1000. You can add the GW1000 to your station. The GW1000 will pickup all of your Ecowitt sensors. The benefit of the GW1000 is that you can then have all the data on your local network easily accessible by many different weather applications. These weather applications running on your local network can then be used to populate your website directly. There are many options for you to consider.

Meteobridge
Weather-Display
Cumulus MX (new support added for GW1000 as of today!)

You can also use WeeWx which uses a slightly different method to get the data...The GW1000 sends the data to your WeeWx system, rather than with the previous three I mentioned they ask the GW1000 for the data. The difference is Push / Pull. The GW1000 can only Push to one system, but it can allow unlimited other system to Pull the data simultaneously.

All four of these applications support the Wordpress Weather Station plugin and will supply clientraw.txt or realtime.txt.

Some of these applications can run on a computer (dedicated computer recommended but not required). And most of them can run on a Raspberry Pi also. In the case of the Meteobridge that runs on a dedicated small device that "was" a router and has had its firmware changed to run the Meteobridge software.  Having a dedicated device for any of these will prove more reliable.

The neat thing about the GW1000 is that you can run all of these applications I mentioned at the same time. So that perhaps you can test all of them out and see which you like better. All of these applications will provide even more capabilities to your weather station than just updating your website. These applications also provide you with the capability of uploading to a multitude of other weather services. The more places you put your data then you can take advantage of the different tools and analysis that each site provides.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2019, 01:38:09 PM by galfert »
Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
Tele-Pole

Offline northernbrucewx

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Re: Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2019, 02:08:30 PM »
Hi galfert,

Thank you for this information. If I'm reading correctly, the GW1000 is basically a gateway? It will pick up the sensors from my main weather station? I can then use the gateway with one of the programs you mentioned and in turn, connect that to the Weather Station plugin?

I use a Chromebook, so maybe I should pick up a dedicated raspberry pi (something else I will have to learn to do!)

Offline galfert

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Re: Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2019, 03:48:06 PM »
Yes, yes, yes, and yes to everything you said.

In your situation with a Chromebook you only need the Raspberry Pi if you want to run Cumulus MX, Weather-Display, or WeeWx. The Meteobridge is self contained to its own device. You can manage any of these from the Chromebook. Getting Meteobridge installed onto the device from a Chromebook might be a bit tricky...not sure. You'd have to be able to turn the Chromebook into a TFTP server and I don't know if there is an app for the Chromebook to do that. But you could always buy a Meteobridge that has already been installed on the hardware router and then you can manage it with the Chromebook.

Ecowitt GW1000 | Meteobridge on Raspberry Pi
WU: KFLWINTE111  |  PWSweather: KFLWINTE111
CWOP: FW3708  |  AWEKAS: 14814
Windy: pws-f075acbe
Weather Underground Issue Tracking
Tele-Pole

Offline northernbrucewx

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Re: Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2019, 08:04:31 PM »
Perfect. With the holiday season coming up, I've asked my wife for the GW1000 and a Raspberry Pi for Xmas ;)

Thank you for the information. For now, I'll just keep on plugging away using OpenWeatherMap until I get my station back up and running!

I may ask you some questions in the future ;)

Thanks again.

Offline meteocaldas

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Re: Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2020, 08:14:25 PM »
I guess my question is, is there a way to create clientraw.txt, or realtime.txt files using this new Ecowitt unit so I can display my actual PWS data?
Hope that makes sense,

Hi there!
I have a WH2650A and I am using a realtime.txt file, created from Ecowitt data. If you can create a database in your site (mysql for instance), then it is not difficult to use the data Ecowitt sends to your site, and create a realtime.txt that will work very much alike realtime.txt Cumulus does. This has a great advantage from sending data to WU because you will not depend on API calls! I think this process, it is not much different from creating a clientraw.txt for the ones that need this file instead of realtime.txt.
The result can then be used in any template that needs realtime.txt as you can see in these 2 exemples
https://meteolitoral.com/pws
https://meteolitoral.com/mtp

Offline Webinaut

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Re: Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2020, 07:05:27 PM »
Hi meteocaldas,
This thread is very helpful.
I have an Ecowitt compatible weather station which can export to a URL using WS View and the customized option in either WU or Ecowitt format.
I develop Wordpress websites, so I know my way around Wordpress, CPanel, SQL databases, etc.
Please could you share the specific steps required to setup a database that will receive the Ecowitt data, what format the .txt file needs to be in to be read by Weather Station plugin and how to output the file in real time.
I am aiming to produce something similar to the WU PWS page, but on my own website.
Thanks in advance.

Offline meteocaldas

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Re: Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« Reply #7 on: September 27, 2020, 08:51:54 AM »
Hi Webinaut!
My apologies for the delay in answering your question about how to create a realtime.txt
It's been a long time since I have done that and I didn't take any notes, so now I need to revive all the steps and it will take me 2 or 3 days to send you the full procedure.
I will send it by PM.

Best regards
Paulo

https://meteolitoral.com/pws (using ecowitt and a fake realtime.txt)
« Last Edit: September 27, 2020, 09:01:01 AM by meteocaldas »

Offline Webinaut

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Re: Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« Reply #8 on: September 27, 2020, 05:25:30 PM »
Hi Paulo,

Thanks for the reply.

I figured it out by piecing together information from various WX Forum posts. It works well. However, I now have an issue with reliability: https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=40491.new#new

Thanks again,

Martin

Offline beba

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Re: Ecowitt WH2320E help.
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2021, 06:37:05 PM »
Hi Webinaut!

i'm in the pretty same situation than you. I have a Fine Offset clone weather station, running a wordpress blog with weather station plugin and would like to use the custom ecowitt option of my base unit to send data to my blog. As you wrote in your other post you wrote a little php script as a api endpoint and to convert data. Would be great if you could share that with me? :-) Otherwise i have to figure out the realtime.txt format and use one of the github script as a base...

Thank you!