Dear xairbusdriver and WeatherCat subscribers to this darn
"mellar-drama"First the update. No errors the past two nights.
WeatherCat reports errors only on the temperature and wind speed only, and has always been consistent in that.
Precisely. Every time I've had problems the pattern of errors is the same: external temperature and wind speed errors only. Oddly, when I have caused the station transmitter to run out of power, the console displays dashes instead of numbers for every sensor. So the console and Weather Envoy change state in response to the transmitter stopping. However, apparently Stu cannot get that information out of the computer interface.
And those cables were also "spliced"? Exactly how did you "splice" the cable; by crimping on a new male or female connector or by cutting the individual wires?
Only the anemometer cable has been spliced. The reason for doing all this was to eliminate the splice on the temperature/humidity probe since Davis no longer recommends extending that cable. The extensions where done using the Davis 7957 splicing kit:
http://www.davisnet.com/product_documents/weather/manuals/07395-010_IM_07957.pdfIt provides the weather-proof housing shown in the instructions and uses scotchlok connectors to make the splices. You need to cut the out insulation of the cables (which are 4-conductor telephone wire) but the scotchlok connectors make the actual connections.
Since the temperature/humidity probe is brand new. It seems extremely unlikely that brand new piece of equipment would behave like the old one
Is it using a new cable? I assume it comes with a short one which is why you needed to "splice" them, assuming you even did that on this particular cable.
All Davis sensors come with their own data cables. You should be able spot this now that you have your station up.
[behavior is duplicated] when station transmission stops by removing the battery and unplugging the AC adapter.
Returning to my first quotation, are you saying that the "temperature and wind speed" are the only sensors that stop transmitting when you remove these two power sources?!
No, all sensors are lost because the transmitter has stopped broadcasting. You can observe this at the transmitter by turning on a dip-switch that causes an LED to flash every time the station transmits data (about once a second.) This is useful in troubleshooting. WeatherCat cannot determine if a sensor has errors unless either the value returned by the data logger is unreasonable (like negative rainfall) or is a sentinel value according to the Davis computer interface. At least as WeatherCat is presently implemented, it only detects errors from two sensors when the transmitter stops transmitting.
My simplest suggestion is to change the station/Console ID's and watch/wait. That only requires a dip switch change and probably entering the Console/Envoy settings. But it will rule out the possibility of another station on the same ID. Apparently, the freq is not adjustable, only way to differentiate one transmitter from another is with the 8 different IDs probably assigned to each data packet.
I've already tried a number of transmitter IDs without any change in the situation. Right now the station transmitter is on ID #3 and the console retransmits that data on ID #4. I have my 6382 temperature/humidity station on ID #2. Oddly, I've never had a data outage from the 6382 transmitter. If there was some electromagnetic interference that was blasting across all the Davis station IDs, you would expect I would have sensor errors from both temperature/humidity probes - that doesn't happen.
Your station has been in the elements for over 5 years. Mechanical connections can corrode/oxidize with just humidity. That would include the RJ connectors, of course. The battery contacts are relatively easy to clean, the RJ one could be difficult, but it's another possibility you can eliminate with a little elbow grease.
As you'll learn, the Davis housings are very well made. The components hold up well if you do a little maintenance. If you haven't already done it, get yourself some silicone grease for o-rings and lube the o-ring that seals the solar panel door to the transmitter enclosure. If you do that, it will be easier to open the door to replace the battery and it will make sure the enclosure remains water-tight.
I'm not sure the drain you are seeing is anything more than what you'd see in a battery sitting on a shelf in your house.
Unfortunately, that is clearly not true. I've been buying these batteries according to Herb's commission at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002IGW15G/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1Herb's observation is that Amazon sells these batteries fast enough that they don't end up sitting in inventory and losing power. If you buy these specialty batteries at your local hardware store, they have have discharged because of slow inventory turn-around for this sort of battery.
Just after putting the battery in the station I check the voltage under load. I've gone through something like 24 of these batteries since October and all but one was right on the spot: 3.23 Volts. The one exception was 3.22 Volts - close enough. I continue to take voltage readings of the battery while still in the station - thus under any load that the battery might be experiencing.
That is what makes this whole situation - very strange. The main reason I switched from trying to keep my station solar powered to using an AC adapter is that I was -
certain - that would eliminate any power supply problems. No matter now much power the station transmitter might need, the AC adapter should have been more than up to the task. So it seems a fool-proof modification to get myself out of this mess. Davis stubbornly insists that when the AC adapter is connected, the battery is bypassed completely. If it bypassed, how can the voltage drop? Okay it will over many months, but I'm seeing changes over weeks.
So as I've said, something is really weird here. Davis has the newer station transmitter board in their shops right now. I'm hoping whatever is wrong with it they can fix it and my nightmare will finally be over.
Oh well, Edouard