Topic: Blake Larsen Sun Recorder to CMx

[davidmc36]

The Pi 5 didn't work out. I picked up a Pi 4. Working on Windows now.

[davidmc36]

The Pi 5 didn't work out. I picked up a Pi 4. Working on Windows now.

Pretty slow on the GUI. Shouldn't matter once set up and restarted headless.

[davidmc36]

I was playing around with W10. Gyvate said he has W11 on some Pi4's.

Trying to get OS from the link he mentioned but the script is logging a lot of errors.

This appears to be a bit of a journey.

[davidmc36]

Still running the script to pass the data to the Pi. Can't seem to get a Windows system going. Have a Pi4 and Pi5.

On a bright note; I added a few lines to the script so it spits out "Transferred at" or "Failed at" with a time stamp. That way if I view the output, I know it is running consistently.

[davidmc36]

Trying a different approach.

W11 running in a VM.

The Sun Recorcer program seems to be happy to run but have not got it to see the USB yet.

[EGR cooperative observer]

I have the sunshine sensor operational here in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  On one notebook it couldn't find the sensor so I tried another one and it found it.
The sensor is working great.  The challenge now is to determine what is the proper calibration settings??
I see there is a WIN and CAL. Any thoughts?

[davidmc36]

I have no idea what you are referring to there .... WIN? CAL?

To update my journey.....

SUCCESS!!!! I have the Sun Recorder program running on the BOTSPOT Win11 VM on the RPi 5.

I had to manually input the COM3 to the SRconfig file. (Maybe I had to do that before??? Not the for latest install on my main laptop though.)

It also seemed that I had to manually edit the file for the USB passthrough also. Whatever the steps were, it is working in Direct FullScreen Mode.

Now, CMx should be a breeze to set up. Then just transfer all my data files to the new Pi. (I did end up finding the old laptop and it still boots so I have my previous data.)

[EGR cooperative observer]

Great to hear!

The CAL and WIN are sensitivity settings to the sensor.

View - Sensor Monitor and then type in capital letters CAL

[davidmc36]

 

IDK

I don't see anything different happen.

[EGR cooperative observer]

Sorry, I think it may be CALI

[davidmc36]

If you alter CAL, it changes the threshold that is used to determine if the sun is shining or not. When you change WIN, it changes the distance between the Threshold line and the pink line. I'm not sure what the pink is for.

[EGR cooperative observer]

If I recall correctly that may be in the manual.

[davidmc36]

Right. Now it gels.

Adjust the CAL to alter Theoretical Maximum Current for a given time of day. This will cause the pink line, Calculated Threshold, which "turns on or off" the sun, to be altered.

WIN changes the distance between them.

What if you had a location that was uniformly, slightly obscured? Would you increase WIN so it "turns on" easier?

I have never changed them as I did not even know they existed. The manual does not show how to get there.

Some of my charts from this May show short bursts of a micro amp or so over the Theoretical Max line.

[davidmc36]

I tried to run CMx 4 on the Win VM but it did not seem to like it.

CMx 3 seems to start up fine so I should be able to copy all the data files and have the system housed all on the RPi 5.

Possibly try updating after using this: https://www.cumuluswiki.org/a/Updating_MX_to_new_version#Updating_if_you_use_the_start/stop_management_script

But if I can't.....Version 3 seems to still work just fine.

[PaulMy]

I have never changed them as I did not even know they existed. The manual does not show how to get there.

There is nothing in the published manual on the calibration.  I did toy with those CAL and WIN settings after Ole logged into my PC with TeamViewer many years ago (2016) and guided me how to do that for optimizing, and I made some notes - i.e. use CALI. 
Increase CAL and WIN = Green and Purple moves up, and less sun
Decrease CAL and Decrease WIN = Green and Purple moves down, and more sun
Increase CAL and same WIN = Green and Purple moves up, and less sun
Decrease CAL and increase WIN = Green and Purple move down, same sun

But now my old B-L is in better hands

Enjoy,
Paul

[PaulMy]

Possibly try updating after using this: https://www.cumuluswiki.org/a/Updating_MX_to_new_version#Updating_if_you_use_the_start/stop_management_script

That is way outdated.

I think you mean @jank and the CumulusMX Start|Stop - Management Script . As far as I know that script is no longer maintained since CMX can run as a daemon. I would ...

Upgrading CumulusMX to new versions is quite easy - download and unzip new version.  Moving from CumulusMX v3 to v4 does involve a couple additional steps:  https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=22051

Enjoy,
Paul

[davidmc36]

I will most likely stick with the latest version of 3 and I can easily retain history.

I took a swing at getting .net8 onto the VM but I'm not sure I got it right.

I think I will have a working solution soon though.

[davidmc36]

I have never changed them as I did not even know they existed. The manual does not show how to get there.

There is nothing in the published manual on the calibration.  I did toy with those CAL and WIN settings after Ole logged into my PC with TeamViewer many years ago (2016) and guided me how to do that for optimizing, and I made some notes - i.e. use CALI. 
Increase CAL and WIN = Green and Purple moves up, and less sun
Decrease CAL and Decrease WIN = Green and Purple moves down, and more sun
Increase CAL and same WIN = Green and Purple moves up, and less sun
Decrease CAL and increase WIN = Green and Purple move down, same sun

But now my old B-L is in better hands

Enjoy,
Paul

It seemed pretty simple really. CAL moves both up and down. WIN changes the spread between them.

Is there other data like Theoretical vs Actual saved in files? Otherwise, it seems the only important thing is where the Calculated Threshold line lands to save sun hours.

[PaulMy]

@David,

Is there other data like Theoretical vs Actual saved in files? Otherwise, it seems the only important thing is where the Calculated Threshold line lands to save sun hours.

I think that is in the \SunRecords\yyyy\mm\dd folders.

In my latest log from 2019 \SunRecords\yyyy\mm\dd are .dat files that have:
LAT
LON
TZ
DST
SRS 05:47:56 21:00:53 (which is the start and stop time period = 15:12:57 hh:mm:ss)
TOT 00:42:40 00:00:00 (which is the sum of each period of sun during the day = 00 hrs 42 min 40 sec)
SUN 15:45:36 15:51:04 (which is a time period of sun = 05 min 28 sec of sun recorded)
SUN 15:51:32 15:55:54 (which is the next time period of sun = 04 min 22 sec of sun recorded)
and so on for each time period of sun to end of sun, to
NRC 21:00:53 21:00:53 (which is the end time and no more recording.

So SRS time period I assume is theoretical, and the sum of each SUN period is the total actual.

Sorry, my old SR files are on an old Win 8 PC and difficult to attach to this reply post.

For the period May 2017 to Jun 5, 2018, when I had both the B-L and Davis VP2 Plus with solar and UV, I compared the B-L data to the CumulusMX/Davis VP2 Pro solar data in Excel chart.  B-L was quite a bit more precise with usually more sunshine recorded.

Enjoy,
Paul

[davidmc36]

That makes sense then. If you had some reason to need the threshold altered CALI would come in handy.

[davidmc36]

Almost over the finish line. At least I will do the 30k marathon and have it running with CMx3. About 90% downloaded all my history to move over to the Pi5. FTP from the PiZeroW is somewhat slow lol

[davidmc36]

Running now with BL Recorder and CMx 3 housed on the RPi 5 Win11 BOSPOT VM

https://www.morewoodweather.ca/CumulusMX/gauges.htm

[davidmc36]

Getting so close.

I have manually sent FTP the sun graph image to the file manager on my host.

I am trying to use the script from before, to move it using Powershell.

Just can't seem to get the directory right.

It logs in, but fails at the "cd" line

Code: [Select]

# Needed for PowerShell 7.3 and newer
$PSNativeCommandArgumentPassing = "Legacy"
While($true)
    {
    $i++#

& "C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.com" `
  /log="C:\Program Files (x86)\WinSCP\WinSCP.log" /ini=nul `
  /command `
    "open ftp://winpi:[PSWRD]@s414.sureserver.com" `
    "lcd C:\Users\WinPi\Desktop\SunCorder\System" `
    "cd /xxxxxxx/xxxxxxxx/xxxxxxx/xxxxxxx" `
    "put WebToday.png" `
    "exit"

$winscpResult = $LastExitCode
if ($winscpResult -eq 0)
{
  Write-Host "Success"
  Write-Output "Transferred at $(Get-Date)"
}
else
{
  Write-Host "Error"
  Write-Output "Failed at $(Get-Date)"
}
Start-Sleep 3600
}
exit $winscpResult


Code: [Select]

PS C:\Users\WinPi> C:\Users\WinPi\Desktop\SRsunshineTest.ps1
Connecting to s414.sureserver.com ...
Connected
Starting the session...
Session started.
Active session: [1] winpi@s414.sureserver.com
C:\Users\WinPi\Desktop\SunCorder\System
Error changing directory to  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: No such file or directory
/
Error
Failed at 05/09/2025 15:36:42

[davidmc36]

BOOYAH!

Just kept scratching my head.......what am I missing here......????

I tried out using a "Client" log in to upload which only has access to a specific file.

Once I am connected with WinSCP using the credentials......the directory is "/"

DOH!

Code: [Select]

PS C:\Users\WinPi> C:\Users\WinPi\Desktop\SRsunshineTest.ps1
Connecting to s414.sureserver.com ...
Connected
Starting the session...
Session started.
Active session: [1] winpi@s414.sureserver.com
C:\Users\WinPi\Desktop\SunCorder\System
/
WebToday.png              |          21 KB |   94.5 KB/s | binary | 100%
Success
Transferred at 05/10/2025 05:08:40
This is the one it did does. I have it running every 5 minutes. Or I thought so....not quite yet.

https://www.morewoodweather.ca/Testing/Sun/WebToday.png