Hi JG and WeatherCat fans,
WC is saying the voltage is low at 1.15V and it shows Good on all the transmitter batteries. I called Davis to ask them what the correct voltages are and they said that neither the Envoy nor the Console can tell you the status of the VP2/ISS power levels. He said that if I am connected to the Envoy then WC must be pulling the values from the Envoy, not the ISS.
I hate to report but the Davis tech support guy was mistaken. WeatherCat does collect data on transmitter batteries and generates errors based on them.
Is the Console Voltage the amount of juice going into the ISS from the solar panel? It fluctuates a lot (maybe because of the amount of light). The manual is pretty light in this area.
According to what we've heard, the solar panel is only a secondary source of power for the ISS. When there is sunlight is uses that power, otherwise it uses the Lithium battery. So the Lithium battery will discharge eventually. I make a point of replacing them every year to avoid trouble.
I'm wondering if the drops in data have to do with low voltage; the console display doesn't seem to lose the data like the Envoy has been doing.
If the distance between the ISS and Weather Envoy is substantially different, it could be possible that one is effected and not the other. You could test this by temporarily moving the console to the same location as the Envoy and running the data packet test that is part of the console diagnostics.
The VP2 is relatively new, installed in September so I can't imagine it needs a new Lithium battery already.
Well, you are right that you -
shouldn't - need another battery, but it could be a defective battery. These batteries aren't that expensive. If it isn't too much of a hassle, I would try a fresh battery and see if that makes the problem go away.
Good luck!
Cheers, Edouard