Sunshine Recorder

[Gina]

Thanks Ole

[apenwith]

Hi all
We still need to fill in some gaps for people to test the recorder in different latitudes. Have a look at the information on page 25 and contact apenwith via private mail if you are interested.
Regards
Alan

[RayProudfoot]

Can I ask a couple of questions about this please to save me trawling through all 26 pages.

I have a Davis VP2 and want to add their solar sensor but until they change their firmware to allow it to connect to the anemometer transmitter it's a non-starter. I'm not confident they ever will. My back garden is too shaded to locate any solar/sunshine sensor there.

So this device looks interesting. Am I correct in thinking it will plug straight into a PC and bypass any weather consoles? Then Cumulus will accept the data from the sunshine recorder and make it available as a webtag?

Steve, not sure if you have this yourself but would you anticipate it being more accurate than the Davis solar sensor with the formulae required to turn their readings into sunshine hours?

I live in on a housing estate so would need to mount the sensor on my anemometer pole 30ft up which would then have pretty good horizons but not unrestricted. I'm wondering if I could then run the USB cable down an unused chimney into the lounge and then to a netbook I run 24/7 for my weather station. That's about a 45ft (15mtr) run. Is that practical?

Finally, as access would be difficult so how would users keep the glass clean? Rain-X looks good. My roof-climbing days are behind me.

[Olejul]

Hi RayProudfoot,

Yes - our device will plug straight into a PC via an USB adadpter.

No - Cumulus can not today accept the sun recorder data but it might be possible in the future - Steve will most probably respond to this question.

We have tested the sun recorder with 150M cable without any kind of problem so 15M cable length is fully acceptable.

We intend to recommend a yearly maintenance only for cleaning the acrylic glass tube and the reflector meaning the unit must be taken down for that purpose.

The tube with reflector is easy to dismount from the rest of the hardware just by removing two screws.

[steve]

No - Cumulus can not today accept the sun recorder data but it might be possible in the future

I would hope and expect that it will, yes.

[RayProudfoot]

Olejul / Steve,

Thanks for your replies. My main concern is accessibility to the sensor because it clearly has to be in an open space which for me means at roof level. But your answers have given me some encouragement that this is a clear alternative to the Davis solution and in most respects is a better one.

I look forward to hearing how the trial goes.

[CalonDdraig]

Hello Ole and Alan,

we would very much like to trial one of your sensors - we would be very happy to pay the deposit. I found this thread while looking for food for my Arduino as I'm very much a homebrew hardware guy - and my Dad's a professional meteorologist (retired) who was looking for an instrument to measure sunshine.

We have a clear line of sight of approximately 150 degrees of visibility horizon to horizon, are located at 54 N 4W and have a PC constantly running cumulus to log weather.

We're very keen to help you try out this device and give constructive feedback and of course the data files, etc.

Our website is: http://weather.trigonos.org/ though it's still basic and we haven't added Cumulus yet (work commitments) or additional graphs of observations (end of the month) - we are a new project but very excited by what you're doing with this recorder.

And if you don't have us as part of your trial, we'd love info on how to build one of these recorders for ourselves!

Kindest regards,

Dafydd, Trigonos - Nantlle, Gwynedd

[ragno]

Inform all friends of the forum which is now active sunrecorder Blake / Larsen installed in Italy (5 km north of Venice) to test. The data can be seen online at my site: http://www.marconmeteo.altervista.org, updated every 5 minutes. A great work of Alan and Ole!

Best Regards, Dario

[RayProudfoot]

Hi Dario,

That's interesting. I've worked out the red line is sunshine and the grey line is when it's cloudy.

But what is the single blue line between 08:45 and 09:20? The sensor in the shadow of something?

[apenwith]

Hi Ray

It indicates that the recorder is not recording at that time - presumably Dario had stopped it for some reason.

Regards
Alan

[RayProudfoot]

Hi Ray

It indicates that the recorder is not recording at that time - presumably Dario had stopped it for some reason.

Regards
Alan

Thanks Alan. How near to the horizon can the recorder reliably record sunshine? Up to 10 degrees?

[ragno]

Hi Ray

It indicates that the recorder is not recording at that time - presumably Dario had stopped it for some reason.

Regards
Alan

It's right, in that time, I was on the roof to install permanently sunrecorder.

[Olejul]

Thanks Alan. How near to the horizon can the recorder reliably record sunshine? Up to 10 degrees?

Hi Ray,

The sun recorder will detect the sun when the sun disk is just over the horizon - in other words: it will detect sun shine right from rise to set.

The sun brightness must however be fairly clear - a too reddish sun disc will not be detected and is not considered to be real sun shine.

Best regards
Ole

[RayProudfoot]

Thank you Ole. I am very interested in this recorder but my only concern is accessing the roof to mount the sensor. I'm reluctant to go up there myself which means hiring the services of an aerial installer. Perhaps I should get a couple of quotes or bribe a youthful neighbour with some beers. Not to be drunk until he's finished the job of course.

And the other concern is that I would like Cumulus to be able to receive this data which may happen but not for a while.

I've also decided running the cable down the inside of a chimney is not a good idea so I need to consider an alternative route.

[apenwith]

Hi All
I'm not sure if the chart below is to advertise sunny Cornwall but this is our April sunshine data in the far west of the county. I had to squeeze the chart size a bit which is why the text is not as clear as the original.

Ole is working on a Google Earth project and we are in the process of creating a website (many thanks to Ole's son).

Regards
Alan