Using a PC case fan to aspirate your temperature/humidity probe.

[xairbusdriver]

Heat shrinking is a great method! Did you use a heat gun? I usually just blow on the tubing...

I also like "liquid" 'tape'. It comes in several colors. 'Camouflage' helps hide it from view.

[elagache]

Dear Blick, X-Air, and WeatherCat station caregivers,

Thanks for the blow by blow description and photos. Glad you are back up and aspirating.

You are most welcome!  However, I'm still behind.  I still haven't gone through the standard maintenance checklist!

Heat shrinking is a great method! Did you use a heat gun? I usually just blow on the tubing...

I bought a heat gun because I needed to make some electrical repairs on da' trusty wagon that required this level of protection.  Heat shrink tubing certainly does a better job of protecting wiring from the elements.

I also like "liquid" 'tape'. It comes in several colors. 'Camouflage' helps hide it from view.

I have some liquid tape as well, but I use it only when nothing else will work.  There are some new crimp style connectors that allow you to avoid some otherwise horrible soldering jobs.  Posi-Products makes some really neat connectors:

http://www.posi-products.com/

The one that is really the greatest improvement over the alternative is the Posi-Tap:

http://www.posi-products.com/posiplug.html

There are a number of situations when you need to tap into an existing wire.  These connectors do in a minute what used to take 1/2 hour of really messy soldering.  When you need to tap into an existing wire on an automobile, trying to solder in the engine bay (or worse) is very difficult  and potentially dangerous!  I'll take this smart-cookie solution over that any day! 

Cheers, Edouard 

[xairbusdriver]

trying to solder in the engine bay (or worse) is very difficult

I suspect it’s best done with the engine not running? 

[elagache]

Dear X-Air and WeatherCat FYI electricians,

trying to solder in the engine bay (or worse) is very difficult

I suspect it’s best done with the engine not running? 

Uh yeah!  That's one of first things to make sure of!  However, even with the engine off, tapping a wire can be a very miserable business.  When I retrofitted our 2000 Century (Coquette) to Phillips LED daytime running lights, the controller box needed a tap into the parking light wiring.  LED daytime running lights are supposed to dim at night, the way the controller box determines to dim the LEDs is when the parking lights are on.  Alas, the only place I could find to tap into that wire was in the right next to the plastic light housing.  Trying to manipulate a soldering iron at the edge of the engine bay with fragile plastic and potentially flammable lubricants around was not fun!     However, I did manage to make the connection.  As a result, here are the LED daytime running lights in the daytime:



Here is what they look like with the headlights on and thus the LEDs are dimmed:



I bought the same kit for my trusty wagon, but the row of LEDs looks too modern for a 50 year old car in my tastes, so I'm trying to come up with something else.  At least for my wagon I was able to use the Posi-Tap connectors so I've already got the needed tap without any soldering.

Cheers, Edouard 

[Blicj11]

Nicely done Edouard. Like Fredrico, we love you.

[elagache]

Dear WeatherCat station caregivers,

WeatherCat dutifully sends me the reminder email to service my weather station on October 2nd.  I've been trying to complete this servicing since then.  The Weather Envoy battery fiasco was part of this effort.  Today, I finally got around to servicing the temperature humidity probe.  Since I replaced the PC case fan last spring I wasn't sure how much debris the new fan was bringing into the radiation shield and onto the sensor itself.  So felt it was necessary to take the assembly apart to be sure all was well.  I decided to just unplug the cable and let WeatherCat rack up the sensor errors.  Here is what the assembly looked like just off the bracket:



Not very dirty at all really.  Here is the upper part of the assembly where the fan is located:



Some dead insects and spider webs but nothing seriously obstructing the air flow.  I decided to use one of those compressed gas dusters to remove the bulk and settle at that.  Winter is coming, there is no point in cleaning beyond what will get dirty again in a hurry.  Finally here is the original Davis radiation shield disassembled:



It comes together with the components from the top of the photo and ending up with the final solid plate at the bottom of the photo.  My sensor isn't in the normal position that would have come from Davis because the fan required the sensor to be relocated (according to Davis at any rate.)

I need to buff the wax off of the collector cone and apply Rain-X to the interior surface of the cone.  Then at last my station will be fully serviced for Winter.  These days, I guess I can't complain about it taking 2 weeks!

I hope everyone else in the Northern Hemisphere has done their maintenance for Winter.  If not, time is definitely of the essence!

Cheers, Edouard

P.S. I had a surprise when I checked WeatherCat after reconnecting the temperature humidity probe.  It claimed the temperature had jumped 10 degrees from where it was when I started the servicing.  Here is a graph with the anomaly:



As you can tell from the photos, the sensor spent a bit of time in the sun while I was servicing the assembly.  That was enough to cause the apparent increase in temperature.  As you can see from the graph, the fan made quick work of getting the sensor back to the correct air temperature.

[Blicj11]

Once again, thank you for taking the time to photo-document your adventures and share with the rest of us.