Topic: Wittboy, first impression for kickstarters , maybe some tips

[Rover1822]

I received mine yesterday.
All went smoothly as far as install, put some notes to help others or for future work

1. Mounting the unit, I found a schedule 40 galvanized pipe, 3/4" fit perfectly ( for US people), 3/4" PVC does also work. 1" OD diameter is what the unit requires, and as a lot of pipes in the US are sold by ID , be aware of that.
2. In this initial testing mount I just used the pipe screwed into a flange and screwed into my deck railing
3. I decided to use the ethernet port for setup. I located the device on my router then configured using the IP and the web app
4. I used my laptop to do the configuration via the device web page. A note to developers, really?, this has the same issue as the GW1100 webpage, you can't scroll to lower settings / data on a laptop as there is no scroll bar (this should be an easy fix). My laptop is a touch screen and I was able to use the touch scroll to get there. A regular laptop, PC, no. You can get around this on laptops/pcs by zooming out from the web page to see more. Obviously , smart phone works fine. (edit: If you click in data area or middle of the page, up and down arrow keys will allow to reach unseen areas)
5. Love the fact you can static the IP in the device when connected to the ether port, hated the fact you could not do that when you switched to WIFI. Sure, we can do this at the router, but why make it harder?
6. N/S/W/E indicator is hard to see, use a marker to mark it on the side when you have to mount and position
7. Why can't on a device like this, with this , include on the board a magnetometer/compass , yes I know that would need some minor calibration (translates to need a config section on setup in the aps), but you would not have to orient the sensor array in one direction.


This is all initial, current install location may change, but so far no issues. This is preliminary , I have not started comparing values etc.
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[Gyvate]

" you can't scroll to lower settings / data on a laptop as there is no scroll bar".
if you put the mouse pointer inside the data showing window/part of the page, you can scroll down using the mouse wheel.
If the mouse pointer is near the edges of the page, it won't work.
It got confused by that early too until I found out ...

[Gyvate]

6. N/S/W/E indicator is hard to see, use a marker to mark it on the side when you have to mount and position
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South is where the cable comes out, where the USB port is covered by the rubber/silicone sleeve . North opposite  (where the battery compartment is - there is even a barely visible "N" on the edge of the wind entry opening).

[Rover1822]

Yep, I edited my post , stating that. Just frustrating for those that don't know that, or don't have a scroll wheel (I don't), but up and down keyboard arrows work the same way as long as you mouse click in the data area . Be easy for them to put a scroll bar IMHO. Although I admit it is fun making a page for both mobile users and larger screens.

[Rover1822]

On the N/S/W/E , yes hard to see (also be nice in the guide if they showed where they are, i mean they kind of do in one picture, but it is not obvious) easier to just draw a line down from which one you need to orient , which is what I did.

I'm just pointing out stuff to help others

[Meski]

What's the sensor on the end of the white cable that sort of dangles?  Do you just leave it hanging?

[Gyvate]

that's not a sensor - it's a connector for power supply (heater for wind sensor in winter and - as per some Ecowitt pre-announcement - also to power the whole array with all its sensors).

[Meski]

Ah, thanks for that, unlikely to get cold enough to need a heater, and it seems to be running well on solar.

[Rover1822]

Mine came with a plug on the end that can be in my opinion to easily removed, or fall off. As there is an exterior thread there, be nice if they had a threaded cap as opposed to the plug.

[hiljo]

I put mine inside the tube, so it isn't even visible and so water can't enter the plug.
(You can pull it back a little bit, and make it go inside the schrewing part)

[KC5JIM]

On the N/S/W/E , yes hard to see (also be nice in the guide if they showed where they are, i mean they kind of do in one picture, but it is not obvious) easier to just draw a line down from which one you need to orient , which is what I did.

I'm just pointing out stuff to help others

The bright silver screw for the battery compartment faces north - I found that to be a perfect alignment mark.

[Autofill]

just curiour about something, I also got my WitBoy today and installed it.

I put my batteries in (Energizer Lithum), sparked up no problem, connected and did updates to the GW2000. Then I connected the WitBoyt to DC power, and the battery indicator went red or 20% (from 100% on battery power only). I took out the battereis and kept it on DC power, still battery indicator is low....but the unit is fine and working.

Just curious if any of your are experienicing this with DC power plugged or if some software bug is causing this.

Cheers

[Gyvate]

just curiour about something, I also got my WitBoy today and installed it.

I put my batteries in (Energizer Lithum), sparked up no problem, connected and did updates to the GW2000. Then I connected the WitBoyt to DC power, and the battery indicator went red or 20% (from 100% on battery power only). I took out the battereis and kept it on DC power, still battery indicator is low....but the unit is fine and working.

Just curious if any of your are experienicing this with DC power plugged or if some software bug is causing this.

Cheers

What battery indicator are you talking about and where (Ecowitt Dashboard [there are two different ones for the WS90], WS View Plus [GW2000] Live Data or SensorIDs, ...) ?

Mine is connected to DC (and has batteries inserted) and shows full everywhere (except for the Capacitor as I have a revision 1 model - the kickstarter Wittboys are revision 2 and also show the loading state of the capacitor which however is not charged by the power supply - the capacitor is only charged by the solar panel)

[Autofill]

All the above.

It must be a bug, I actually don't have any batteries in it, running on DC power only.

Working perfectly fine, I might add.

Ecowitt.net says my capacitor is at 2.8 V and my battery is at 2.44 V.... But no battery are installed.

[Gyvate]

All the above.

It must be a bug, I actually don't have any batteries in it, running on DC power only.

Working perfectly fine, I might add.

your GW2000 is on firmware 2.1.4 and your WS90 on V.1.1.7 (you did the latest firmware update described in the parallel thread ?) ?

[Autofill]

Ahh that could be it.

I did not update the wittboy firmware thinking that was just for the first version.

How likely do you think it's V1. 1.7?

[davidefa]

All the above.

It must be a bug, I actually don't have any batteries in it, running on DC power only.

Working perfectly fine, I might add.

Ecowitt.net says my capacitor is at 2.8 V and my battery is at 2.44 V.... But no battery are installed.

How do you run ws90  'on dc power only'?
The connector should be for the heating element only, you should always insert batteries. See following post

The 2.44V battery reading ( without batteries inserted ) is due to some leakage current

[olicat]

Hi!

The connector should be for the heating element only, you should always insert batteries.

No.
The power supply is feeding the whole sensor array including heating and all sensors.
Have a look here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1758231609/wittboy-the-all-in-one-intelligent-weather-station/comments

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Oliver

[davidefa]

Ok, thanks Oliver

[Autofill]

All the above is correct, you're right about the leakage.

Ecowitt confirmed that there is reverse leakage current from isolation diodes that charges back to the battery power, and it is perfectly normal to see this.

I have no issue with this, but I wish I didn't see the low battery indicator.

The unit is working and went all night on DC power. Outdoor temperature dropped to - 3oC and the heater draws about 0.8 amps (when it turns on) , and the unit about 0.1 amps.

I'll likely suggest they add a software fix to ignore the battery level when on DC power.... Like the WH45. Battery says "DC" when its on DC with no batteries in the unit.

UPDATE: looks like when the sun hits the Witboy, the battery and capcitor voltage goes up. Now they are both reporting, 2.82 V and 3.2 V, with no more "low battery" indicator and indicator at 100%. Its interesting that the battery indicator is working as if I have rechargeable batteries in the unit, but there are no batteries in it. I wonder once the supercap charges, if that battery voltage remains the same and stays stable for as long as I have DC power connected. I guess tonight I will find out. I did install the unit close to dark time, so if the supercap only charges via the sunlight, I suspect that it wasn't fully charged untill now.

UPDATE 2: voltages are now at and all is good:

WS90 Sensor (Battery)
2.98 V
WS90 Sensor(Capacitor)
3.3 V

Jus curious, anybody know the size of the supercap AND what is the upper voltage (limit)?

[olicat]

Hi!

looks like when the sun hits the Witboy, the battery and capcitor voltage goes up.

The Supercap has - fully charged - a voltage of 5.4V. The voltage is output via ws90cap_volt - with firmware v2.1.4 also again via Ecowitt protocol/custom server.
It is very nice to see how the Supercap charges up via the solar panel in sunlight and slowly discharges (about 0.1V per 2 hours) when the sun is gone.
So far - we have very sunny weather - the voltage of the supercap went down to max. 4.6V during the night and was then fully charged again within 3 hours.

Oliver

[Autofill]

thanks so much oliver! I suspect my problems about the low battery indicator will be fully solved when my supercapacitor charges all the way up to 5.4V for the first time.

They may comeback again if that voltage drops back down (if there no or low sun for a couple of days).

I think the keypoint here (someone mentioned this above) is that the supercap is only charged via solar. So, in a situation like me where you have no batteries installed, it somehow uses the back-leaked supercap voltage as battery voltage, but for people who have batteries installed, it uses uses the voltage from the true batteries that are installed.

Ok, good information for me at least, thank you!

[Rover1822]

This has probably been discussed before, but here is an observation

I have a ambient WS-2000 (osprey, wh65) and a Wittboy. We know that if you have a WH40 , the apps and Ecowitt.net will display the Wittboy (Piezo) rainfall and the WH40. if you have an osprey and the Wittboy, same thing, you will get the WH65 rain and the Wittboy rain.
However, As the osprey also does the other sensors, outdoor temp, humidity, etc. Those will come from the Wittboy. I guess that is understandable in order of hierarchy of the sensor arrays.

In  my case I have a GW1000 , GW1100 and the GW2000  reporting the data.

[Aircub]

For anyone that might be interested there is now also a Wittboy user group on FB.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1184055165466328

[Gyvate]

For anyone that might be interested there is now also a Wittboy user group on FB.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1184055165466328

Looks like you are one of the main contributors there so far. 
Tell them that the diameter for the pole is 28mm max !! - 23mm also still work, but it better be something in between these limits.
So this 7/8" thing is likely to be on the edge. Maybe the guy better puts some tape around the pole end to allow for a tighter hold.
Would be undesirable if the WS90 slipped out on stronger winds.