Sun LED on Solar Panel

[geoffp]

Has anyone any idea what settings will bring up the "Sun" LED on the Cumulus Solar Panel I am using a "Nevada 3010" station with Solar Sensor.

Cheers

[steve]

From a recent post:

Cumulus calculates hours of sunshine based on attempting to determine whether or not it's sunny at any given time using the Lux reading. The code was designed to work with Davis stations and their particular solar sensors which supply a global irradiance value in W/m2. Cumulus attempts to convert the FO Lux reading into something similar, simply by multiplying by 0.0079. You can adjust this factor in the [Solar] section of cumulus.ini by supplying a LuxToWM2 setting.

The 'is it sunny' determination usually requires adjusting for your particular conditions using the settings on the station settings screen - see the help. You may or may not get reasonable results for your station.

[geoffp]

Thanks again Steve

[geoffp]

Sorry Steve I can only find these details:-

[Solar]
SunThreshold=75
RStransfactor=0.86
SolarMinimum=9

[steve]

Yes, those correspond to the settings in the solar section of the station settings screen - see the help for what they do. You need to adjust those (in particular the first two) until you get reasonable results. If indeed you can get reasonable results from the Fine Offset solar sensor. The solar graph will help you compare the solar reading with the theoretical maximum.

If you want to adjust the LuxToWM2 value in cumulus.ini, you need to add one.

[geoffp]

Thanks Steve, could you give me a rough idea of what I should set these settings to,

Cheers

[steve]

The default settings are my rough idea. Someone with a Fine Offset station may be able to suggest some settings to get you a bit closer. You'll need to experiment to see what settings work for your station and your location.

[geoffp]

OK Steve thanks

[geoffp]

Hi Steve

In the Cumulus.ini under the [Station] section I have entered a line as below, is that correct?

LuxToWM2=0.0079

Many thanks

[steve]

It needs to be in the [Solar] section, and the value you've entered is the default, so it would have no effect anyway.

[geoffp]

Thanks Steve have just put it in the correct place

[geoffp]

Right, so far I have the following:-

Solar panel main display
Light 50242.8
Sol Rad 301 w/M2
UV 2

On the Station setup page
Sun Threshold 75%
Sun Minimum 4
Transfactor 0.80

Cumulus.ini
LuxToWm2=0.0060

And still no signs of the "Sun" LED lighting even though the sun is out.

[steve]

if the sun was out at the time of those figures, then your calculated solar radiation figure is probably too low, so you need to increase the LuxToMW2 figure rather than decrease it. Once you have a reasonable solar radiation figure - and I have no idea how you would know when it's correct - then you can look at the other settings. It would be useful to look at your solar radiation graph so you can compare your solar radiation figure with the theoretical maximum. It's the comparison of those figures that decides whether it's sunny or not (using the threshold figure).

[geoffp]

Many thanks Steve, I have now got theLED on, just have to fine tune it a bit on the % and Sun Min