Topic: Wired Anemeter - Correct Speed Direction Nothing but North

[Randall Kayfes]

Greetings - Every sensor is reading correctly except wind direction is nothing but North...
After 20 hours it is finally giving something other than the north false reading so here is what I did...

I noticed a light dusting of crust on the ICC wind jack (RJ14 IIRC), so I sprayed all of the ICC RJ14 jacks with electronic contact cleaner.
I also re-seated each jack several times to ensure a good connection.

That seemed to work but by the time I got the solar panel back on the ICC was back to north indication with a clearly east wind.
So I then went to work and retrieved a cable crimper and a couple of spare RJ14's determined to re-crimp the Wind RJ14.

But when I got back home non-north readings again. So I got on the roof to check the sensor itself (station refurbished 2 years ago).
I found the wind vane a just a little crusty to turn so I shot contact cleaner all through the underside of the vane until easy to turn to the touch.

It has been several hours and it seams to be accurate again.

Does anyone else have any suggestions or am I looking what could an inevitable failure soon? Anyone else experience this in such a short amount of time?
To answer the question before it is asked yes I have the new brass tipped vane.

Yes I do realize some of my fixes do not seem to make sense in regards to the symptoms... Just a little perplexed.

[miraculon]

Please see this post: https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=36507.msg374966#msg374966

Wiring errors:
yellow wire open causes a north indication
green wire open causes a north indication
red wire open causes a north indication and prevents wind speed from being indicated
black wire open prevents wind speed to be indicated
yellow to green shorted causes a north indication
yellow to red shorted causes a north indication
green to red shorted causes a north indication
black to yellow shorted, wind speed zero
black to green shorted, wind speed zero and direction erratic
black to red shorted, wind speed zero, intermittent short causes wind speed error

From your description, it sounds like the potentiometer wiper is intermittent and not making contact sometimes. Davis used to loan out an anemometer test cable, I don't know if they still do. You could verify the ISS with it. My guess is that the anemometer pot is going bad.

It seems that the lexington weather link is not working. I thought that a copy was hosted here on wxform.net somewhere. Anyone know?

Greg H.

[Randall Kayfes]

Thanks for the fantastic info - and there certainly is a lot of possible errors for the N indication problem. I am calling Davis Tech support this morning as I have another question on scripting as well. Re-splicing is a piece of cake for me but with intermittent how do you ever know...

Randall

[Randall Kayfes]

Greetings, I called Davis Customer Support and was told they could send out a replacement for $60 plus shipping and it would arrive in 4 days. The phone call reminded me that I used to have a redtailed hawk that loved to sit on the vane (I know fantastic balance right). I am sure that was not healthy for mechanics of the vane. So, the vane arrived a day early and is in service.

Thank you everyone for your time, help and consideration. What a fantastic group of forum members!

Randall