Can Cumulus work with WeatherlinkIP?

[patrickduis]

Hello, I'm planning a weather station for our observatory (www.sterrenwachthalley.nl). I want to do it right and are considering a Vantage or a Vue (still not decided yet).

My question is: can I use cumulus on a separate PC and connect to the WeatherlinkIP interface (via IP address)? Does that not "bite" the automatic software that is already in the WeatherlinkIP?

[steve]

My question is: can I use cumulus on a separate PC and connect to the WeatherlinkIP interface (via IP address)?

Yes.

Does that not "bite" the automatic software that is already in the WeatherlinkIP?

The design of the device does not allow it to upload to weatherlink.com while any software is also connected. Cumulus has a setting to disconnect for a configurable period once a minute to allow uploads to weatherlink.com to take place. As Davis do not supply any guidance or documentation for third party software developers in this area, I've implemented this facility using information from WLIP owners. It does seem to achieve its intent, from the feedback I get.

The best solution, of course, would be to turn off the uploading to weatherlink.com

[patrickduis]

Ok, can the upload to Weatherlink be disabled with this weatherlinkIP interface? We are planning to use only Cumulus anyway.

[steve]

Yes, you connect to the WLIP using a browser, to access the configuration screen, and turn off the uploads. On the same screen you can also specify a fixed IP address rather than using DHCP, which is probably a good idea so that the address doesn't change.

[patrickduis]

Ok, thanks for this information. In Halley observatory we have all specialized pc's like the ones controlling the telescopes on a fixed IP.

[csrawx]

"Cumulus has a setting to disconnect for a configurable period once a minute to allow uploads to weatherlink.com to take place". Steve, could you please forward specific instructions to program Cumulus to do the aforementioned/ I would like to keep performing uploads to WeatherLink. Could you please advise? Thank You.

Billy Tholborn
Amateur Surface Weather Observer
CSRA Weather

[steve]

On the station settings screen, in the Davis TCP/IP settings box, set a value for 'Discon period'. The description of this field in the help is:

"Causes Cumulus to disconnect for the specified number of seconds, once a minute, on the minute (or as close as possible) to allow the Weatherlink IP to connect to the Davis Weatherlink site. Keep this figure as low as possible to minimise the amount of time which Cumulus spends disconnected from the station. Set it to zero to disable, if you are not using the Weatherlink site."

[csrawx]

Thank you, Steve....