Topic: WH40 - dead, or just dead battery?

[Ra1nman]

The latest is that two innards are on their way back to Ecowitt, and (yet) another WH40 is on its way to me.  The onset of the festive season got in the way of more timely completion of packaging and posting, but that is life!!

I will do the diagnostics assigned to the failed units on the new one, so that a baseline is established - I am not very confident about these units, though I have to assume there are a lot out there functioning faultlessly.  But it is strange that I have drawn the short straw twice ... 

Any updates on your replacement WH40, maybe not arrived yet, sorry to hear you've been having issues.

[Rover1822]

I will do the diagnostics assigned to the failed units on the new one, so that a baseline is established - I am not very confident about these units, though I have to assume there are a lot out there functioning faultlessly.  But it is strange that I have drawn the short straw twice ...

It is really unfortunate and unusual, or there would be many other posts of failure with the WH40. There have been many posts about calibration and accuracy (normal for any product), but not outright failure, and not with 2 units. No idea on this, might be a bad manufacturing run, but that is just a guess.

I do hope that the 3rd unit works flawlessly for you.

[GeeEmm]

Thanks Ra1nman, Rover for your good wishes.  The new unit has not yet surfaced so nothing to report on that front for now.  I am also waiting on some radiation shields for the two external temperature sensors and will be watching the mailbox closely for the rest of the week!

It would be interesting to know the failure rate of that model, more particularly that batch number (if they are not still working their way through the initial production run), but these will only be known to the factory.  The caveat there is that some will fail but that failure will not be reported for whatever reason, and the factory's information will fail to reflect the full extent of the problem.

I do hope you have had a pleasant Christmas, we had sunny 30+ weather at my daughter's where we all gathered, and on my return 37 at home!  No rain, but a storm is passing by now.

[GeeEmm]

WH40 #3 now up and running, registered on the console and logging rainfall as I write this.  Eveready Energiser lithium AA, 1.8v power, tested on powering up at around 40ma, around .1ma when on stand-by as per Ecowitt specs.  Currently sitting in the grass in test mode, I'll put it up the mast on the weekend, there is a bit of thunder and lightning around so playing safe.

Fingers crossed on this one - third time lucky?  I hope so ...

[GeeEmm]

No3 still going ... again. 

Got up a couple of days ago, big puddle on the concrete slab ... nothing on the console!  The WH40 was still connected, but no data.

Got the mast down, had a look, expecting bird poo, one of the spikes gone in the spike ring.  No, just a little white ball - a spider's egg sac, who thoughtfully popped out to say hi, and got whacked for its trouble. Dismantled the funnel, cleaned the web and sundry garbage out, gave the whole thing a good dose of insecticide surface spray, replaced the missing spike with a piece of stiff wire, and put the whole shebang back up.   Now I am looking at a big storm, but I think it will miss me so I will have to wait for an opportunity to test the mechanism. 

I also took the opportunity to clean out the manual rain gauge for a check on the WH40 reading, something I have not done yet.

[Gyvate]

regular maintenance of the rain gauge is necessary  .
self-invited guests from the insect kingdom and bird droppings are well known reasons for the rain gauges not to work properly.
When you put the rain gauge at 1-2 m height - that's what the WMO recommendations say - it will also be much easier to clean it 

[clouded]

The latest is that two innards are on their way back to Ecowitt, and (yet) another WH40 is on its way to me.  The onset of the festive season got in the way of more timely completion of packaging and posting, but that is life!!

I will do the diagnostics assigned to the failed units on the new one, so that a baseline is established - I am not very confident about these units, though I have to assume there are a lot out there functioning faultlessly.  But it is strange that I have drawn the short straw twice ... 

Did the new WH40 unit they sent you work okay ?
I also have Ecowitt I got in 2020  and the WH40 worked fine until last year. I think it had used just one battery in two years. It quit reporting and I put in a new battery which fixed it , but then it quit again . The battery was drained out. I tried another battery and same result. I thought I had bought a bad batch of batteries and gave them away. But no batteries seem to last long - they all die in a few days.
I recently took the WH40 apart and cleaned it and looked at the board in it for any obvious defects but saw nothing weird. The board had been coated well and there was no corrosion anywhere.
So I am thinking of ordering another WH40 - sure my original one now is out of warranty . But I don't want to get one unless I know the problem has been solved. And I would have to consider getting a Whitboy model for $200 instead of spending $50 on just another WH40 . Not sure if the jury is out that Whitboy is decent or not ?
Anyway let me know if your replacement WH40 is working okay.
Thanks

[GeeEmm]

Cloudy, yes but it is only two months since it went up so early days.  But the signs are good.

What I did not say above in my last post, is that I took the battery out when cleaning, thinking that it would be a bit of a test of the electronics to re-create a battery change, with nil result.  It was not a full recreation of the scenario that led to the replacements, as the battery was not fully discharged, but maybe that is the key learning (if there is one at all) - replace your batteries regularly, before they are completely run down, at least in the WH40.

You can see the state of my motherboards above, they both were in good nick, no sign of physical deterioration (that I could see) - I believe the problem lies in one of the components on the board, either age-related or perhaps it doesn't like low voltage when the battery is down.

I would not spend money on a new anything - this is a product design/manufacturing/component flaw.  Hit up Ecowitt with your problem, I have found them receptive and while yours is older than mine the flaw appears to be in yours as well.  They can only say no, but that would be a little out of character based on my and others dealings with them.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

[GeeEmm]

Following on from the above post, I have diarised battery replacement for every six months for the WH40 (lithium), and a year for the others (alkaline).

I am tempted to continue with my involuntary product testing program for Ecowitt's WH40 by letting it go until the battery dies and seeing what happens with the new battery, but I feel I have done my bit and now I would like to lead the quiet life.  OTOH, if Ecowitt want to put me on the payroll, I am sure we could come to an arrangement 

[clouded]

GeeEm
Since my wh40 is close, I may just run a 12v line to it and use a $1 step down converter to lower the voltage to 3v and run it off that. I have already done that with my other battery operated wx sensors - saves having to mess around with batteries.
But yeah I can reach out to Ecowitt too. The Ecowitt weather station was a big step up from the cheap Lacrosse weather station I had before. Ecowitt is solid and well constructed compared to others.
Thanks for sharing your adventure with the WH40.

[davidefa]

@clouded
I would rather step down to 1.5V ; - )

@GeeEmm
I think your note to replace batteries before being fully depleted could be a good idea.
I had a wh51 soil sensor that failed ( it draws current in the range of 200-300mA ).
Both sensors ( wh40 and wh51 ) have a stepup circuit ( from 1.5V to 3V ) which could be the cause of the failure at low input voltage, need to check.

[clouded]

@clouded
I would rather step down to 1.5V ; - )

@GeeEmm
I think your note to replace batteries before being fully depleted could be a good idea.
I had a wh51 soil sensor that failed ( it draws current in the range of 200-300mA ).
Both sensors ( wh40 and wh51 ) have a stepup circuit ( from 1.5V to 3V ) which could be the cause of the failure at low input voltage, need to check.

Oh yeah thanks - forgot it only had one battery in it !

[Rover1822]

My feeling here is there is a fault in the battery circuit as you have stated. Adding a power supply to something that has a fault , IMHO, will probably result in something else failing.

But, at 1.5V , go for it
LOL

[GeeEmm]

Cloudy, I should have added above that as well as hopefully getting you another unit, having a legitimate whinge to Ecowitt would be a bonus to the community, as the more people that complain the more likely (and hopefully the sooner) a fix is provided.

I wonder whether the WH90 was their fix, but that seems come with its own set of issues.

Thanks for the replies, I will update this thread as and when there is something to update!

[clouded]

Cloudy, I should have added above that as well as hopefully getting you another unit, having a legitimate whinge to Ecowitt would be a bonus to the community, as the more people that complain the more likely (and hopefully the sooner) a fix is provided.

I wonder whether the WH90 was their fix, but that seems come with its own set of issues.

Thanks for the replies, I will update this thread as and when there is something to update!

I got the wire, connectors, step down converter soldered on this afternoon - but it is way too freezing cold and windy out so I am waiting for better weather to hook it all up.
Winter and frozen ground doesn't seem to want to give up yet. At least the snow mostly melted the other day before it turned to ice again .

[Rover1822]

Where did you attach the wires for the step down, at the battery terminals, or did you trace further ?

Also, what did you use, a linear, or a switcher , or a combination of both?

[clouded]

Where did you attach the wires for the step down, at the battery terminals, or did you trace further ?

Also, what did you use, a linear, or a switcher , or a combination of both?

I run the 12v into LM2596S DC-DC 3A Buck Converter Adjustable  Step Down Module. They only cost about $1 each and can be adjusted to many voltages. Also they are small enough to fit in the battery compartment of some devices if you want to do that. So 12v into LM2596 and output to WH40. I will make it easy and just use the battery terminals or whatever is most convenient to make the connection. I have a collection of cheap digital wireless thermometers that I pick up at garage sales for a dollar or less.  I powered them all with one of these small buck converters . I should take them all down since most of them have failed or lost their connection. I built a small shelter outside covered from the sun and put the sensor in there so easy to power. If possible I usually find a way to solder some wires on or close to battery terminals.  I snip a slot into plastic battery cover for wires to exit . I run all off of solar here and have a Samlex 24v to 12v dc to dc converter to make  my 12v power for radios, routers, led lights, etc. The rest of my power is 120v from inverter.

[Rover1822]

Ok , it is a switcher. Should be fine. Sometimes, I use a switcher, followed by a linear to clean it up. Switcher gets you the low loss drop but might be noisy, depends, so I usually follow with a linear for the last drop , so Switcher does the big drop, and nd the linear has a smaller drop to do, so less waste.


I also have a solar array, offgrid, using Outback inverters (shed pic in my link on my sig "Weather Cam") , so I was curious.

[clouded]

I just got the WH40 here wired up to 1.5v power . The cup in the gauge is filled with an ice cube , but I tipped it a few times and it is reporting .
Now will just have to wait and see if it works for  hopefully for a long time. Maybe when it warms up I will take some current measurements.
I measure the battery that was in it at .76 volts or close. I also updated firmware to newest 1.7.6 . I barely ever use the ecowitt app because I read everything from weewx running on pi zero w.

[DreamingSpires]

Following on from the above post, I have diarised battery replacement for every six months for the WH40 (lithium), and a year for the others (alkaline).

Why not just set an alert for when the battery drops below a certain voltage for all the sensors for which you have concerns?

[broadstairs]

Why not just set an alert for when the battery drops below a certain voltage for all the sensors for which you have concerns?

Remember older WH40s do not send battery data, only those most recent do this.

Stuart

[GeeEmm]

Why not just set an alert for when the battery drops below a certain voltage for all the sensors for which you have concerns?

Remember older WH40s do not send battery data, only those most recent do this.

Stuart

This has come up before and I have stated that none of mine have broadcast any battery condition data that I can see.  All I have is the antenna symbol with bars on my console.

[olicat]

Hi!

To be on the safe side, you could of course have your station sent to EAR. If a wh40batt is displayed there, the rain gauge also sends the battery status and can thus be used as a trigger for a notification via Ecowitt.net. If not, you unfortunately have an "old" version of the rain gauge that actually cannot send the battery status.

Oliver

[GeeEmm]

Thanks Oliver, I will look at doing that, but at first glance it looks a little over my head.

FWIW your link was blocked for me.

[olicat]

Hi!

Sorry, link repaired (and thanks for the hint).
Setting up the custom server function is not a difficult task. On EAR there is an explanation and even a few screenshots on how to set it up. It probably takes less than 3 minutes.
The only important thing is - if you are already using the custom server function - to take a screenshot of the current settings BEFORE entering the settings for the EAR server.
Then you can just as easily go back to the original settings.

BTW - to all:
Ecowitt has apparently removed the old WSView from the Playstore ...
Was there any indication of this on the part of Ecowitt?

Oliver