Wind Readings Stopped

[ajayre]

Maplin FO WH1080, 433MHz.

Recently I noticed that the wind direction was working but the wind speed was always zero. Rain was OK.

I swapped the wind/rain RJ11 connectors at the TX and I saw that the wind speed sensor was registering as lots of rain. Flicking the rain collector showed zero wind gust.

So it seems to me that the cables and sensors are OK but something is wrong with the TX.

I brought the TX inside and left it to dry out for a week (it was covered in damp). Didn't help.

I've taken the TX apart and used a multimeter to verify that the pins in the wind RJ11 socket are connected to the bottom of the circuit board, and they are.

A visual inspection of the circuit board doesn't show any problem.

New batteries didn't help.

I scraped the connectors in the RJ11 socket with a screwdriver. I also connected a spare telephone cable and tested continuity from the end of the cable to the PCB - all works.

Any more suggestions before I throw the TX away?

Thanks, Andy

[AllyCat]

Hi Andy,

Try connecting a "pullup" resistor of perhaps 100 kohms (or maybe lower when testing with a multimeter) from the battery supply down to the Wind input. Check that the voltage on the pin swings at least between 1 volt and 2 volts when the anemometer rotates.

Also note that the transmitter may need to "see" 20 or 30 pulses on the Wind input to report an average of only 0.7 mph. But a single pulse should produce a "gust" value in Cumulus, or if the Console is set to report the gust speed.

Cheers, Alan.

[ajayre]

Thanks for the suggestion. Do you happen to know offhand which pin it is on the RJ11 socket? It would be quite a bit of effort for me to taken my mast down to get the anemometer or try to use a multimeter with the TX connected to the mast. Thanks!

Andy

[sfws]

the two inner wires connect to the anemometer and the two outer wires to the vane

[Solorize]

Hi Sorry to jump into this thread as well.

But I've just noticed that my Wind direction and Wind speed have
stopped working too.

I did notice the other day that it was not giving any figures but
I put that down to the fact that there was no wind.

So now I assume that there must be a similar problem with
my WH1081

As I don't get in from work until its dark it is going to be a bit
of a nightmare trying to find where the problem is. Would it
be better just to by a new replacement transmitter as they are
only £14.99 from Maplins. ( I did have to buy a whole new
WH1081 weather station earlier this year as my old transmitter
had the humidity go haywire, and as I knew that a replacement
transmitter would not work with my older version of the WH1081).

FYI.
With the new weather station & transmitter I have been getting
the well documented rain and wind spikes. So don't know if that
may have had something to do with it now not working?

Therefore, would you think that it would be more likely to be a problem
with the transmitter than the wiring?

[AllyCat]

Hi,

..Therefore, would you think that it would be more likely to be a problem with the transmitter than the wiring?

If you're still getting external temperature, humidy and rain readings, then I wouldn't first blame the transmitter. I'd be looking at the integrity of the rain cable and plugs, for example dampness in the plug. Do you have a multimeter or anything to test the electrics? If not, you could try the trick of swapping rain and wind plugs (lots of rain if the anemometer is working).

Certainly my "replacement" Maplin station has much poorer radio comms than the previous one, which may well be responsible for the "spikes" (or total "lost contacts" in my case).

Cheers, Alan.

[Solorize]

Hi,

The other night I did try and switch the rain and wind cables over but got no readings,
(when tapping the rain gauge and the wind was blowing).
I do have and extension cable hooked up to the wind cable as it would not
reach the transmitter, but I had a look at the junction (which is in a weather tight
container), and it was dry. I also plugged the original cable in (before the junction)
and that still did not work.

FYI.
The Temperature, Humidity & Pressure are all working OK.


I managed to find a replacement transmitter on /-\mazon
and it has just turned up so will swap that over and
see if it starts working again. If not I have replacement
wind vane an anemometer so I can try those.

Hopefully it will work if not I will have to investigate further.

[Solorize]

Just a quick update.

I swapped out my old transmitter with the new one I got yesterday and happlily my wind reading are
back working again

I was a bit worried when I first looked at my base unit as there was no wind speed being registered
by the wind direction was changing. I looked out the window and watched for a bit and noticed
that the anonmeter was not tuning but the wind direction was very slightly moving now and again.
Then when I looked on Cumulus I noticed that the wind direction was not being shown.
So I left it all running overnight and checked back this morning and all is displaying correcly.

Therefore, I guess that the wind direction is only displayed if there is an associated wind speed
being recored (i.e. some wind is blowing). If the wind direction is moving very slightly but there
is no wind speed registering then the wind direction is not recorded.

[ajayre]

Try connecting a "pullup" resistor of perhaps 100 kohms (or maybe lower when testing with a multimeter) from the battery supply down to the Wind input.

This worked - thanks! Wind speed readings are back. Although I used a 10k resistor as that is what I had on-hand. Here is a picture of the modification.

Thanks again, Andy

[AllyCat]

Hi,

10k will probably drain an average of 150 uA from the battery, so maybe only around 10,000 hours, or a year of operation from a set of alkalines. So I'd go a little higher in resistance.

The current source of the internal microcontroller delivers only about 25 uA (equivalent to 100 kohm), so the normal average drain (of the anemometer sensor) is hardly over 10 uA (switch closed 50% of the time).

Cheers, Alan.

[ajayre]

Well, six hours after some rain it stopped working again. POS. Sigh...