Cumulus Support

I thought it would be nice to see other peoples weather stations hence this topic.

The current layout is after much trial and error and is the best compromise considering all the constraints. The mast mounted position is the third position I tried and the transmitter unit in the 6th position. The mast is as high as I can confidently place - it gets a bit more risky at that height. The stevenson screen is made out of white melamine bowls. These were quite hard to cut requiring a glass cutting drill. The odd shape is because I could not get sufficient number bowls of the same type. The current postion is in the shade for most of the year except for the middle of the year - hence the solar panel and internal fan. Long cables have been used to connect with no problems and the rain sensor has been wrapped with tights to keep out insects especially spiders.

Over to others!

Trev

Very nice indeed
Couple of questions
How much have you extended the leads by
And any more detail on the solar fan

Orion wrote:Very nice indeed
Couple of questions
How much have you extended the leads by
And any more detail on the solar fan

The latest layout uses about 12m of cable. Previous ones went up to 20m.
Solar panel as link below but with a 80mm fan - fits better inside the bowls.

http://www.cpssolar.co.uk/epages/620630 ... LARVENTKIT

Trev

Do the bricks that you mount to get hot at all?

Super-T wrote:Do the bricks that you mount to get hot at all?

No not really. The face of the pier faces east and is in shade most of the time except for the middle weeks of the year. The only time the sun directly hits that pier is for a few weeks in the middle of the year but only for half an hour when the sun is low. At the same time of year the sun hits the opposite side of the pier late afternoon onwards but the pier is very thick and heat does not get through. For the rest of the time the pier is in complete shade shielded by the house which is to the south. The fence is a bit of a problem and some heat does penetrate to the east side - hence the solar panel to assist ventilation.

On previous arrangements I tried mounting on the other piers but found that the large area of brickwork from the house or garage raised the temperature even at night when these walls slowly re-radiated the heat gained during the afternoon.

It's always a compromise in an urban environment for properties with small gardens - it's difficult to get far enough away from buildings. The best location must be in the middle of a large field or inside a well ventilated wood.

Trev

Hi
Difficult to see where else you could put the rain counter to give an un-sheltered spot but does it suffer with phantom bucket tips due to updraughts off the roof ? And of course the dreaded mast wobble.
But the screen is really neat.
Regards
Alan

apenwith wrote:Hi
Difficult to see where else you could put the rain counter to give an un-sheltered spot but does it suffer with phantom bucket tips due to updraughts off the roof ? And of course the dreaded mast wobble.
Alan

No phantom tips or wobbles - the rain counter is much further down the mast. The only problem I've had is with spiders - hence the tights. To make the setup look neater the cables are inside the mast.

Trev

I used aluminium mesh the type used for car repairs on my old WH1050 rain gauge
Also sealed the cable entrance think it`s spider-proof now
The new type gauge has smaller drain holes, but have still fitted aluminium mesh to make sure nothing gets in Also a picture of my modified wind vane

The metal mesh looks a neat idea. Any problems with insects getting in from the top?

Does the modified wind vane work better than the original?

Any pictures of the whole setup?

Trev

The metal mesh looks a neat idea. Any problems with insects getting in from the top?
Don`t believe it`s as big a problem as the large holes that were at the bottom

Does the modified wind vane work better than the original?
In my case much better & much less spinning around, unfortunately my location is poor trees & houses everywhere, only real clear direction is east

Any pictures of the whole setup?
Will do but have just ordered a couple of extension leads 1x10mt M/F and 1x3mt and a Joinerso will be moving the transmitter and rain gauge soon
Wiil post a pic when sorted
Roy

Thought I would post a photo up of my setup.

I did a bit of HDR to the photo as the sky was
blown out making it difficult to see the weather station.

I have just put it onto a thicker pole (as seen in this photo)
which I had left over from when I moved house a few years
ago. Which was previously supporting a rather large FM Yagi aerial
mounted on the side of the house so I could pick up pirate radio broadcasts

I may get a 2nd bracket from homebase to support the bottom part
of the pole if it moves in high winds. Just got to wait for a big gust
to see how it holds up in it's current setup.




Closer image

Here's a link to my set up. Its quite a large pic, so I'll leave it as a link. My home made stevenson screen has had a slight upgrade to make it look a bit neater and include a permanently powered fan, but basically the same idea as this.

I also need to do the spider protection as they affected my rainfall just the other day with a deviously cleverly placed web.

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~storerfa ... tled-2.jpg

Here’s my effort

Initially I had my un modified station fitted to the pole on the corner of my garage, but when I had some scaffold installed for chimney repairs I took advantage and fitted the wind gauges to my TV aerial, this improved the randomness of the readings but its never going to be perfect as I have several large trees close by. I think I used 10 or 12 meters of extra cable.

The latest mod was to increase the size of the rain bucket using a piece of aluminium a plastic plant pot and a funnel with the pointy bit chopped off.
Strangely, I’ve had my rain gauge in this position for 2 years and never had any spider problems, may be they prefer ivy to plastic.

I know that isn’t the best place for a temp gauge but beggars can’t be choosers.

The pics were taken during the big freeze last December.

Hope these pictures from Google work, my first attempt to link to images on this forum.

Here's my very basic Fine offset setup:



I had this as a Christmas Present and I was desperate to get it up and running. As it was a bit chilly outside the set-up job was a bit rough and ready!

Anyway it works for now. The fence runs almost due East/West and the picture was taken looking South West. It's a 5 foot fence so the wind gauge is only just above head height. The outside temperature gauge is a bit sensitive to sunshine, giving little peaks and troughs on days when the sun plays hide and seek behind the clouds:

Here's the sort of thing I mean (highly zoomed of course):



So my next step will be to remove the transmitter and rain gauge from the pole and place them nearer the ground, and then improve the minimal 'Stevenson Screen' around the transmitter module. My side of the fence faces North so will be OK to shade the temperature module.

I like daj's nice big white box, but I'm not sure I can get away with that, so one of the 'plant pot saucer' style devices may have to do.

Are you going to think about increasing the height of the wind vane and anemometer? or have you taken that into account with the calibrations in cumulus?