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ISS Battery

Discussion specific to Davis weather stations
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mcrossley
Posts: 12695
Joined: Thu 07 Jan 2010 9:44 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2/WLL
Operating System: Bullseye Lite rPi
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ISS Battery

Post by mcrossley »

I got a low battery warning for my ISS at 22:36 last night. At 00:08 it went offline! :bash: :x
f4phlyer
Posts: 144
Joined: Sun 13 Feb 2011 7:12 pm
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Location: Spring, Texas USA
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Re: ISS Battery

Post by f4phlyer »

Oh! So SAD! Oh, SO, SO, SAD :shock:

Stay off the roof at night......
retreat at augusta pines weather
CumulusMX on Raspberry π rPi5
http://augusta-pines-weather.com / CumulusMX 4.0.0 build:4017
WeatherUnderground KTXSPRIN538
Phil23
Posts: 884
Joined: Sat 16 Jul 2016 11:59 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2+ & GW1000 (Standalone)
Operating System: Win10 Pro / rPi Buster
Location: Australia

Re: ISS Battery

Post by Phil23 »

How old is it @mcrossley ?

My VP2 was a Sept 30th 2016 install & on the original, but a new one sits on the passenger seat of the car....
Was to go in at the 5 year mark, but maybe I'll do it to-morrow, being October 1st.

Aussie Sun & 29.81° South may mean I get better value out of the Super Cap & draw less on the battery.

Age of both your station & the battery would be interesting.
And also your Lat.

Cheers

Phil.
:Now: :Today/Yesterday:

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Main Station Davis VP2+ Running Via Win10 Pro.
Secondary Stations, Ecowitt HP2551/GW1000 Via rPi 3 & 4 Running Buster GUI.
:Local Inverell Ecowitt Station: :Remote Ashford Ecowitt Station:
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mcrossley
Posts: 12695
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Weather Station: Davis VP2/WLL
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Re: ISS Battery

Post by mcrossley »

Probably a couple of years for both the battery and the ISS - I changed the board to switch frequency.

Edit: I checked, I replaced them in April 2020. So not 2 years. :(

A couple of years is about right for me at 53N and a fair bit of tree shading on that unit. What annoyed me was the short time between the alarm and failure. In the past its been a day or two before I got round to changing the battery. It wasn't particularly cold either at around 7C
Phil23
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Re: ISS Battery

Post by Phil23 »

Have you considered replacing the ISS cover with the Dual panel version used with DFARS & paralleling the panels.

Can't see that causing any issues as the Cap & electronics will only draw the current they demand,
Voltage will stay the same, but current will be available for a longer period of the day.

I do acually have the cover on mine but never bothered to parallel the panels.
(My Dfars runs 24/7 off a SLA with a 20W panel).

https://www.scaledinstruments.com/shop/ ... hield-kit/

Cheers
:Now: :Today/Yesterday:

Image

Main Station Davis VP2+ Running Via Win10 Pro.
Secondary Stations, Ecowitt HP2551/GW1000 Via rPi 3 & 4 Running Buster GUI.
:Local Inverell Ecowitt Station: :Remote Ashford Ecowitt Station:
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mcrossley
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Re: ISS Battery

Post by mcrossley »

I checked the voltage output from the panel the other day, it only gets above 2 V in direct sunshine at this time of the year (it reached 2.4 V, only around 0.4 V when the sun wasn't out). So that cap isn't going to get much charge unless the sun shines and it's not in a shadow even with double the panels.

Two big trees have grown up in the neighbours garden to the south of me and casting shadows across the ISS around the midday period from the end of September onwards. So that is probably why the batteries are not lasting as long as they used to :(

I think it will need a bigger higher voltage panel with a regulator to drop to around 2.5 V to keep it charged now. Maybe the double panel door is series with a regulator. The cap is rated at 2.7 V iirc? - certainly the replacement I fitted in my old ISS was 2.7 V.
novawx
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed 03 Nov 2021 7:23 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2
Operating System: Windows 10

Re: ISS Battery

Post by novawx »

I don't necessarily think it's your latitude that's the problem. When I lived in Florida, I was replacing the ISS battery in my VP2 about every 9 months for 10 years and my solar panel was always in full sun. I had that VP2 from 2005-2015. Now I live in Virginia and purchased and installed a new VP2 in January 2018 and I am still using the original battery. Here in Virginia, I do have a tree that shades my solar panel for a very short time in the morning during the winter months but for some reason my wife won't let me cut the tree down!
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mcrossley
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Re: ISS Battery

Post by mcrossley »

You could be right, these transmitters do seem to be variable in power consumption. My wind transmitter that I installed at the same time is still going strong, and like I said the old ISS board in the same position with the same solar panel the battery lasted at least 2 years, usually 3 or more.
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HansR
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Re: ISS Battery

Post by HansR »

novawx wrote: Thu 04 Nov 2021 11:01 am ... but for some reason my wife won't let me cut the tree down!
Great woman ;) :clap:
Hans

https://meteo-wagenborgen.nl
CMX build 4017+ ● RPi 3B+ ● Raspbian Linux 6.1.21-v7+ armv7l ● dotnet 8.0.3
novawx
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed 03 Nov 2021 7:23 pm
Weather Station: Davis VP2
Operating System: Windows 10

Re: ISS Battery

Post by novawx »

I wrote the PowerShell Script below and it runs daily at 6:00 AM via Windows Task Scheduler on my PC. It downloads the wxstatus.php file from my website that has the ISS and console battery information, strips out just the battery information and emails the file from my Gmail account to my home email. At least once per day I can see if the ISS battery is "OK" or not, which might give me time to change the battery before it fails. I'm not very good at writing code (I'm a meteorologist), so this script can probably be improved upon but it works. The email I receive looks like this:

Vantage Pro console backup batteries were replaced on 11/6/2021, voltage is 4.7 Vdc, and was last checked at 05:59 on 11/11/2021
Vantage Pro ISS battery is Ok and was last checked at 05:59 on 11/11/2021


The script starts here:

# Remove the Update Status check file
If (Test-Path -Path C:\ISSBatteryCheck\updatestatus.txt ) {
Remove-Item C:\ISSBatteryCheck\updatestatus.txt
}

# Download the weather station .php file with the battery status
Invoke-WebRequest http://www.mywebsite.org/wxstatus.php -OutFile C:\ISSBatteryCheck\wxstatus.php

# Assign input and output paths for the files
$input_path = ‘C:\ISSBatteryCheck\wxstatus.php’ # Downloaded .php file
$outputConsole_file = ‘C:\ISSBatteryCheck\consolestatus.txt’ # Console battery check file
$outputISS_file = ‘C:\ISSBatteryCheck\issstatus.txt’ # ISS battery check file
$outputUpdate_file = ‘C:\ISSBatteryCheck\updatestatus.txt’ # Script file update check file
$output_file = 'C:\ISSBatteryCheck\Status\status.txt' # Combine all three files

# Find text strings in .php file with "voltage", "ISS", and "Note" to create output text files with status
Get-ChildItem $input_path -Filter *.php | Select-String -Pattern 'voltage' | Select -ExpandProperty line | Set-Content $outputConsole_file
Get-ChildItem $input_path -Filter *.php | Select-String -Pattern 'ISS' | Select -ExpandProperty line | Set-Content $outputISS_file
Get-ChildItem $input_path -Filter *.php | Select-String -Pattern 'Note' | Select -ExpandProperty line | Set-Content $outputUpdate_file

# Combine the text files into one file
Get-ChildItem ‘C:\ISSBatteryCheck\' -include *.txt -rec | ForEach-Object {gc $_; ""} | out-file $output_file

# Remove extraneous html code from the output file
((Get-Content -path $output_file -Raw) -replace '<b>','') | Set-Content -Path $output_file
((Get-Content -path $output_file -Raw) -replace '</b>','') | Set-Content -Path $output_file
((Get-Content -path $output_file -Raw) -replace '<br/>','') | Set-Content -Path $output_file
((Get-Content -path $output_file -Raw) -replace '</p>','') | Set-Content -Path $output_file
((Get-Content -path $output_file -Raw) -replace '<tr>','') | Set-Content -Path $output_file
((Get-Content -path $output_file -Raw) -replace '<strong>','') | Set-Content -Path $output_file
((Get-Content -path $output_file -Raw) -replace '</strong>','') | Set-Content -Path $output_file
((Get-Content -path $output_file -Raw) -replace '<td colspan="4" class="advisoryBox">','') | Set-Content -Path $output_file

# Copy the contents of the output file to the clipboard
cat $output_file | Set-Clipboard

# Paste the contents of the clipboard into the variable $bodytext
$bodytext = Get-Clipboard

# Set the username and password for the gmail account that will send the file
$Username = "myemail@gmail.com";
$Password = "password";
$path = $output_file;

# Process and send the email
function Send-ToEmail([string]$email, [string]$attachmentpath){

$message = new-object Net.Mail.MailMessage;
$message.From = "myemail@gmail.com";
$message.To.Add($email);
$message.Subject = "Battery Status";
$message.Body = $bodytext;
$attachment = New-Object Net.Mail.Attachment($attachmentpath);
$message.Attachments.Add($attachment);

$smtp = new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient("smtp.gmail.com", "587");
$smtp.EnableSSL = $true;
$smtp.Credentials = New-Object System.Net.NetworkCredential($Username, $Password);
$smtp.send($message);
#write-host "Mail Sent" ;
$attachment.Dispose();
}
Send-ToEmail -email "myhomeemail@outlook.com" -attachmentpath $path;
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ConligWX
Posts: 1573
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Re: ISS Battery

Post by ConligWX »

mcrossley wrote: Sat 30 Oct 2021 10:11 am I got a low battery warning for my ISS at 22:36 last night. At 00:08 it went offline! :bash: :x
I cannot believe it Mark, you mean to say, CumulusMX did not warning of this catastrophe before it happened? shame on the author! :lol:
Regards Simon

https://www.conligwx.org - @conligwx
Davis Vantage Pro2 Plus with Daytime FARS • WeatherLink Live • Davis AirLink • PurpleAir •

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