Cumulus Support

interesting info about this. I have a second WH1081 set up in the green house just to monitor temp and humidity i have a venting system using 12volt fans to remove excess heat the wind speed indicates when the fans are running.
Would it be possable to connect the rg11 to the rain connector on the wh1081 as i think the tipping bucket is only a reed switch? If this was possable then would cumulus think it was seeing the normal data and display it.

thanks

bruce

duke wrote:You say the tip size must be specified in inches so does that mean the display on Cumulus and the web tag is also inches not metric?

The Cumulus display and the web tag will be in whatever units you've configured. I specified inches for the tip size as my understanding is that's what you have to use on the device itself?

bruce45 wrote:Would it be possable to connect the rg11 to the rain connector on the wh1081 as i think the tipping bucket is only a reed switch? If this was possable then would cumulus think it was seeing the normal data and display it.

I think that's the case, yes, but someone who is more familiar with the Fine Offset hardware would be able to say for certain. If it worked as far as the station is concerned, then Cumulus certainly wouldn't know any different and would use it like a standard Fine Offset rain gauge. You might need to set a calibration figure in Cumulus. You'd have to power it somehow, of course.

Hi,

To avoid future confusion, note that the RG-11 appears to have a "real" serial interface (open collector so not RS232 as such). The "as is" data sheet says that it is "talk only" but the detail file looks more like a "command" structure.

The reason I'm interested is that I'm looking to see if it's possible to use it wirelessly (with batteries/solar charging). It appears that it can be used in a "low power" mode at 1.5mA from 5 volts dc (bear in mind that's still about one hundred times the power of a FO station). But the "killer" might be the relay which appears to need about 50mA, so I wonder if it can send serial data without the use of the relay.

I must say I'm very tempted at a price of just over £50 but am conerned that I might be "hit" for another £20+ for VAT, Duty and Royal Mail collection fee.

Cheers, Alan.

PS: I think the answer to Bruce is "Yes".

AllyCat wrote:To avoid future confusion, note that the RG-11 appears to have a "real" serial interface (open collector so not RS232 as such).

Yes; I haven't looked at this in detail but as it's really a diagnostic interface I wasn't intending to support it in Cumulus, just the relay operation via DTS/DSR.

Ok Steve, I understand why inches now. For reference it can be set up as imperial or metric so no problem however Cumulus wants the data.
Set up table below.

Mode 0-- Tipping Bucket
Rain Gauge emulates a tipping bucket of the
specified size.
Switch
Behavior
7 6 5 4 3 2 1
0 0 0 X 0 0 0 Bucket Size = 0.01”
0 0 1 Bucket Size = 0.001” (Sensitive)
0 1 0 Bucket Size = 0.0001” (Very sensitive)
1 0 0 Bucket Size = 0.2 mm
1 0 1 Bucket Size = 0.01 mm (sensitive)
1 1 0 Bucket Size = 0.001 mm (Very sensitive)
1 1 1 1 Reserved for system test

I must say I'm very tempted at a price of just over £50 but am conerned that I might be "hit" for another £20+ for VAT, Duty and Royal Mail collection fee.

VAT would be more like £10.00 if there is any at all. I regularly have parcels of this size come in from around the world and I can't remember the last time I paid any import duty or a collection fee.

Duke

power is not an issue as i have solar panels charging batteries to run the fans
from the instructions on the site the tipping bucket size can be mm or inches so having it set at 0.2 mm per tip could be a starting point as the bucket size on fine offset is 0.3 mm i thinks.

duke wrote:Ok Steve, I understand why inches now. For reference it can be set up as imperial or metric so no problem however Cumulus wants the data.
Set up table below.

Ah, I hadn't noticed that. Perhaps I should make it so that you specify it in the units you actually use, then there are no rounding issues.

VAT would be more like £10.00 if there is any at all.

Alan said he paid £15 including the collection fee on his free one, which I assume would have been marked at the normal price for customs purposes.

I've uploaded another build (to http://nybbles.co.uk/downloads/Cumulus.zip)to change the tip size to be in the units that are configured in Cumulus for rain, and amended my previous post.

just orderd a rg11 £47.12 with the shipping will update when it arrives

many thanks for all your help

bruce

Hi Steve
I now have one of the RG's running on the RS232 adapter instead of the data logger. Brilliant - many thanks. Would it be possible to tag the RG amounts onto the end of the MMMYYlog.txt records so there is a timing for the rain. Even nicer would be a select-a-graph choice so the RG can be viewed against the conventional bucket.
Regards
Alan

apenwith wrote:Would it be possible to tag the RG amounts onto the end of the MMMYYlog.txt records so there is a timing for the rain. Even nicer would be a select-a-graph choice so the RG can be viewed against the conventional bucket.

Yes, it would be easy to add the RG11 figure to the logs, and from that it would then be possible to add it to Select-A-Graph.

Now that you've confirmed that it works OK, I'll make these additions and then release it as the next beta.

Hi Steve
We've had a little rain today and the RS232 connection is picking it up. BUT it looks as though the 0.2 mm per tip in Cumulus.ini setting is too high (there's a long way to go yet to see if there is a consistant difference - from other reports maybe not). What it may need is a setting that will handle two places of decimals even if only one place is shown on the screen (or a multiplier in calibration) - is that possible. Maybe it is already there as you mentioned the use of 0.01 in.

Regards

Alan

apenwith wrote:What it may need is a setting that will handle two places of decimals even if only one place is shown on the screen (or a multiplier in calibration) - is that possible. Maybe it is already there as you mentioned the use of 0.01 in.

Do you mean the RG11tipsize setting? You can supply any figure you want for that, it just adds in whatever you've supplied and rounds it to 1 d.p for display (and now logging).

Hi Steve
That is just what I meant - Will the RG log data be at the end of the MMMyylog record. It's just so I can extract data for a Excel model to compare my 4 different systems.

Regards

Alan