Topic: POE station with heated rain gauge

[wx_guest]

Greetings, I have an 8-port auto-negotiating POE (power over ethernet) switch, and am wondering which instrument manufacturers I should explore that offer a station assembly with POE data retrieval and a heated rain gauge for snow country?

[miraculon]

which instrument manufacturers I should explore that offer a station assembly with POE data retrieval and a heated rain gauge for snow country

I am not sure what you are getting at here. Davis, for example offers the Weatherlink Live which can function over Ethernet or WiFi. The now-obsolete WLIP also uses Ethernet.

The WLL can be located indoors and doesn't need to be near the outdoor sensors. A heated rain gauge option requires 120VAC to 24VAC power supply/transformer to power a large wire-wound resistor that forms the heating element. (I provide my own 24VAC power via a transformer)

I would question trying to run a rain gauge heater using POE. Only the latest spec POE devices even come close to delivering the amount of power needed for just the heater.

The Davis WLL (and all consoles and Envoys) run on 5V wall-warts and do not support POE.

In the past I was able to power a webcam via a POE adapter, so one of these might work to power a console, WLL or Envoy. As far as other brands, I just don't know. Maybe other owners of the various brands of stations will chime in if they know about one.

A small clarification on the power for the heater resistor. It is not run directly from 120VAC. Sorry for the way it came across.

Greg H.

[doubleohwhatever]

I'm not aware of a station from any manufacturer that operates over POE. Seems like an opportunity for someone though. I imagine a POE station would be well received in the building automation industry.

[Dyacon.com]

WX_Guest,

Heated rain gauges typically draw lot of power compared to weather station electronics. For example a heated rain gauge from Hyquest Solutions runs at 70 W for keeping the orifice and tipping mechanism ice free down to -20°C. The inrush current on the resistive heater, however, requires a supply of 150 W. Gauges like this are also thermostatically controlled, turning on only when it is freezing and heating the funnel surfaces to just above the melting point. The price point is over $2000 USD.

If you are looking for a low-cost weather station system with Ethernet connectivity, ControlByWeb has a unique solution.

They offer a substitute board for the Davis integrated sensor suite that connects to their X-320M controller. (I actually did the reverse engineering of the Davis sensors and design of the adapter board a few years ago.)
https://www.controlbyweb.com/weather_accessories.html

They have made some progress since then and now have a full POE control board (X-422) that serves a web page directly from the Davis ISS.

Eugene

[doubleohwhatever]

That's a very interesting board. If I was still using Davis hardware I'd be purchasing some.

As for heating over POE, it should be possible with 802.3bt (type 4) with a microcontroller based heater to control current.