Highest Wind gust readings wrong on Cumulus screen

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

Hi All,

I've noticed an issue with my cumulus readings tonight which I'm not sure is new or has been happening before !
Firstly, this morning about 8.15am I noticed the anemometer was going "like a good 'un " and I glanced at the base station and it had just recorded a gust of 25.7mph.

When I connected my laptop and ran the Cumulus software tonight, today's maximum gust was only 18mph ? When I checked the dayfile log I noticed the readings are 30mins apart, does this mean if the wind gusts are higher inbetween the reading times they're not recorded?

I looked into the station configuration file and it was set to 10min intervals which is even weirder as I'm sure I set the 30min recommended. I took a chance and set it to 5 min intervals but I'm not sure it's the problem.

Anybody else had this before? My station is an Aercus WS3083 and has been running since late July this year. Ive had the odd problem with a '0' pressure reading ( which may have been my fault as a couple of times my download has been close to the midnight change over )

All the best

Norm

[steve]

When I connected my laptop and ran the Cumulus software tonight, today's maximum gust was only 18mph ? When I checked the dayfile log I noticed the readings are 30mins apart, does this mean if the wind gusts are higher inbetween the reading times they're not recorded?

Yes; if you don't have Cumulus running, the only gust data is that left behind for Cumulus to use when you run it is in the logger entries at the interval you have configured. The entries contain the gust speed at the time of the entry only.

[steve]

Incidentally, you say you thought you had the logger interval set to the "recommended" 30 minutes. Who recommended that interval?

Note that the logger interval in the station, and the Cumulus logger interval, are not related, although it's a good idea to have them both the same.

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

Hi Steve,

Yes I got a bit confused there! , what I meant was that Aercus instruments give a link to the cumulus soft and a short crib sheet on setting it all up, in the info it recommends setting the data log interval to 30mins in the initial station settings which when I read the daily log file shows readings at 30 min intervals. Does this mean that the software only uses data from 30 minute intervals ?
I wondered if I set it to 1 min intervals would it download and use data stored on the base unit every 1min?

As the data is transmitted ( and presumably stored in the stations memory ) every 48seconds ( 60secs for UV readings ) does the cumulus software not download every set of information stored in the station in between downloads?

Mind you are the "gust" readings stored at all? Or are they momentary readings just shown on the display and the gust readings on cumulus are derived from the maximum reading for that day.

Sorry if I seem a bit thick Steve, this stuff is all still a bit new to me !

Cheers,

Norm

[steve]

While Cumulus is running, it reads the data which the station updates every 48 seconds, and updates things like the highest gust from that data. It creates entries in its own log files at the interval you have configured in Cumulus. No data is lost.

If Cumulus has not been running, then when it starts up, it downloads the same data from the logger to catch up, but it's not at 48-second intervals, it's at whatever interval you have set in the station. The entries contain only the values at the point the entry was made. Any readings which were taken in the times in between are lost.

An interval of 30 minutes is not a very sensible choice for most people. It does mean that you could leave the station running for nearly three months without running Cumulus, and when you did run Cumulus you wouldn't have any gaps in your data. But you would have lost a lot of information in the meanwhile.

You can set the station's logger interval using Easyweather or with a utility that I wrote which you can get on the downloads page. I think EW allows a logger interval down to 5 minutes, and my utility allows down to 1 minute. It's not clear whether Fine Offset actually expect an interval of less than 5 minutes to work properly.

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for hanging in there ! I think I'm getting there a bit, but I think the easiest thing is to backtrack and ask your advice on this.....

If my laptop is connected every evening to my base unit to download the days data ( I can't afford to have the laptop running continuously ), in order to make sure as many of the highs and lows , gusts etc are recorded by cumulus, is it best to have the station settings in cumulus set to the lowest interval ie 1 minute? or will this not have any effect.

Thanks,

Norm

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

Hi Steve,

I've just had another play with the base unit display and I think the penny's just dropped ( at last you're thinking ! ) when I press the history button and tab back through the days readings , guess what, the time of each reading matches the times in the dayfile.txt file

Now, going back to your earlier reply, are you saying that it's possible for me to change those 30 min history readings on my base unit? If so, is this done by communicating with my base unit through the USB port with some additional software? It's just that the Aercus manual doesn't mention anything about being able to change those settings.

It would seem if I can change them to say 5mins or less ( I think this is what you were trying to get me to understand earlier ! ) then when I download the days readings I would capture more of the extremes, presumably the trade off would be the units memory would fill up much more quickly, not something I would worry about as I download the data daily anyway.

Recording every 30mins into the memory I think it took about 6 weeks before the internal memory started to overwrite. At 5 min intervals it should still hold about 8 days worth of data.

Best regards,

Norm

[PaulMy]

Now, going back to your earlier reply, are you saying that it's possible for me to change those 30 min history readings on my base unit? If so, is this done by communicating with my base unit through the USB port with some additional software? It's just that the Aercus manual doesn't mention anything about being able to change those settings.

Not retroactively, but from current onwards yes, as Steve mentioned

You can set the station's logger interval using Easyweather or with a utility that I wrote which you can get on the downloads page. I think EW allows a logger interval down to 5 minutes, and my utility allows down to 1 minute. It's not clear whether Fine Offset actually expect an interval of less than 5 minutes to work properly.

Paul

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

Hi Paul and Steve,

Thanks for confirming that, sorry if I appeared a bit thick, I'd had a long day at work and recovering from a stinking cold doesn't help you concentrate !

I've now got the base station storing data every 5 mins, it seems to be handling that ok. I'm going to download the info tonight and see what happens.

It's a bit disappointing that the stations manual doesn't mention anything about the data recording rate or that it can be changed. If it wasn't for this site and Steve's hardwork I'd never have known.

It's a bit of a shame I can't afford to leave the laptop on so it gets the 60sec / 48 sec updates as they occur, or possible set up a raspberry Pi to connect the station directly to a web site - I may consider this at a later date.

Best regards & have a good Christmas

Norm

[steve]

At 5 min intervals it should still hold about 8 days worth of data.

The solar versions hold 3264 entries, so at 5 minutes that gives you just over 11 days capacity.

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

At 5 min intervals it should still hold about 8 days worth of data.

The solar versions hold 3264 entries, so at 5 minutes that gives you just over 11 days capacity.

Hi Steve,

Just checked the manual and it quotes 4080 complete sets of weather data with time and date, so presumably 14 days worth you mentioned in your earlier reply that Fine Offset don't know if it will work with readings of less than 5 mins.

What would be the outcome if I set it at 1 minute and it didn't work? Would it just not store them or would it screw up the base unit? It would still be nearly 3 days worth before overwriting, and it would at least capture nearly all the data similar to leaving the laptop on continuously, just got make sure I download every day !


I really do appreciate the help!

Best regards,

Norm

[steve]

Just checked the manual and it quotes 4080 complete sets of weather data with time and date, so presumably 14 days worth

The models without solar sensors hold 4080 entries. The versions with solar sensors use more memory per logger entry, but have the same total memory, so hold 3264 entries.

you mentioned in your earlier reply that Fine Offset don't know if it will work with readings of less than 5 mins.

What would be the outcome if I set it at 1 minute and it didn't work? Would it just not store them or would it screw up the base unit?

I don't really know. I imagine you might just start getting strange readings, or it may stop logging. I don't think anything would happen that a reset wouldn't fix.

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

Thanks for clarifying that, I think I'll stick to 5 min logs ! Eventually I hope to be able to upload continuos readings to either my website or wunderground, but that's some way off yet as I have to decide the best way to do it.

I may invest in the Raspbery PI to see if it's a reliable and feasible way to go.

Norm