Changing from Oregon to Davis

[Yooper]

I have used an Oregon Scientific VMR928 station for almost 2 years. This station has served me very well. I have decided to upgrade to a Davis VP2 - they are currently on sale at a big discount.

Any issues with Cumulus that I need to consider when changing the instruments? I have ordered the serial interface with the Davis - which is what I currently use with the Oregen station.

Can I simply plug in the new station and change the station in Cumulus? Will I lose all the old data, or will the new data be added to the old data seamlessly?

[steve]

You can just carry on using the same data, Cumulus doesn't mind where the data came from, and all the code to handle the stored data is common to all station types.

[Yooper]

Thanks for the information.

I'll let you know if anything unexpected occurs.

[steve]

Thanks for the information.

I'll let you know if anything unexpected occurs.

Thanks. One thing you need to be aware of is that the rainfall counter from the station (which is used to calculate daily rainfall) will change, so you might have a slightly odd effect there which you'll have to correct manually.

[Yooper]

I got everything hooked up and my new Davis VP2 station installed.

However, I cannot get Cumulus to talk to the Davis VP2 console - I get a 32701 error indicating a problem with initializing the station.

I can communicate with the station using the provided WeatherLink software. That works just fine.

I am using a serial port - Weatherlink indicates that the serial port is working OK.

I suspect I am missing a detail somewhere.

Does Cumulus talk directly with the station, or does it communicate via another means?

Any suggestions?

[steve]

Error -32701 is a com port error. Have you set the correct com port in Cumulus? The latest file from the diags folder may have some information.

[Yooper]

Yes, I set the correct com port and rate in Cumulus. It is the only com port I have on the computer. It was the same port I used when I had the oregon station. The com port ran at 9600 so I set the Davis console to run at the same speed. The Weatherlink software reports the Davis console on the correct port and the 9600 rate.

Could the port be hijacked by another program?

I rebooted the system to see if that made a difference. No change and same error.

I'll see if I can find the diag report.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Everything on the installation of the Davis went very smoothly - except for this last detail!

Dan

[Yooper]

This is the diag file:

2009-07-05 18:48:05 : Cumulus 1.8.7 Build 819 startup

=============================== OS version info =================================
Platform : Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003 family.
OS Name : (Service Pack 2)( (Terminal Server))
(Major Version[ 6 ] Minor Version[ 0 ] Build Number[ 6002 ] Platform ID[ 2 ])
===================================================================================

2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Station type: Davis Vantage Pro2
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Loading all time records file C:\Program Files\Cumulus\data\alltime.rec
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Showing main form
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Read today file: Date = 7/5/2009, LastUpdateTime = 7/5/2009 4:40:00 PM
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Todayfileraindaystart = 8.97637748718262
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Todayfile is for today
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : ReadTodayfile: set notraininit false
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Finding raintoday from logfile C:\Program Files\Cumulus\data\Jul09log.txt
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Setting raintoday from logfile = 0
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Setting uncalibrated raintotal = 8.97637748718262
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Midnight rain found = 8.97999954223633
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Read yesterday file: Date = 7/5/2009
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Yesterday file is valid
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Rainthismonth from dayfile.txt: 0.239999994635582
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : Rainthisyear from dayfile.txt: 8.99999904632568
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : 6:48:06 PM EWUSB Form Create
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : VP2: CloseCommPort_V, res = 0
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : VP2: Open connection, type = 0
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : VP2: OpenCommPort_V, port = 1 res = 0
2009-07-05 18:48:06 : VP2: SetVantageTimeoutVal_V, res = -32701
2009-07-05 18:48:07 : 6:48:06 PM EWUSB: HidControl Arrival
2009-07-05 18:48:07 : 6:48:06 PM EWUSB: HidControl DeviceChange
2009-07-05 18:48:11 : VP2: InitStation_V, res = -32701
2009-07-05 18:49:44 : Cumulus closing
2009-07-05 18:49:44 : No data read this session, today.ini not written

[steve]

Cumulus uses a speed of 19200, but I'm not sure that matters. Worth trying to set your port to that speed, if you can?

It does seem to be opening the port successfully. The description of the InitStation_V call that is failing is "Reads the firmware version date from the station and configures the DLL" and it returns -32701 if "error in getting Firmware Date." - so basically it's failing to communicate with the station.

[Yooper]

Changing the port rate to 19200 fixed the problem.

I'm now back on-line.

3 hours total off line to put up the new Davis VP2 station. It would've been an hour if I didn't run into this final nasty little problem. That is actually really good either way.

Amazingly, I have had my station on-line for a year and a half and I upload to Weather Underground. I have about 15 page hits per day on my Underground web page. My neighbor came over about a month ago and wondered if I was posting weather data on Weather Underground. He said that he used it all the time.

This is amazing stuff.

Thanks for your help and also the Cumulus software. It is great!

Dan

[steve]

It had never occurred to me to offer an option for the port speed. I set it to 19200 way back, for myself, and it just worked, and I don't think anyone else has had a problem like this before. I guess that 19200 must be the default, and most people haven't had it set to 9600 previously for a different station, so they don't see the problem. I'll put a note about it in the readme.

[Yooper]

For my Oregon station I somehow ran at 9600. I'm not sure if this is the speed limit for that station or the default. I ran it at 9600 for a year and a half without a problem. I just decided to keep it at that speed when I changed to the Davis, even though the default Davis speed is 19200.

Thanks again for your help. I was really lucky that you were on-line when the problem occurred.

I'm really happy with the Davis. The sensors are better than the Oregon. I guess you get what you pay for. The Oregon station gave me my year and a half of experience without spending a lot of money. I learned a lot and also realized I really wanted a better quality unit. It was money well spent.

The Davis units are being discounted right now - that might mean that a newer unit is in the works. Just speculation here.

I'll give the Oregon unit to an older friend of mine on a retirement income that is interested in weather stations but can't afford one.

Dan