Cumulus Support

My fine offset base unit has been showing a negative temperature since mid summer, All other readings seam to be showing correctly.

Any ideas on a fix or has the temperature sensor packed in.

Thanks

Ian

Hi Ian,

If it's been consistently low for nearly 6 months, then yes the sensor/transmitter is very probably faulty. Is the relative humidity "correct" even though it "thinks" the temperature is -24 degrees ?

A more detailed answer will depend on the particular model and brand (108x, 308x, Maplin, Clas Ohlson, etc.) , perhaps its age, and whether you have any electronics expertise/tools.

Cheers, Alan.

Thanks for the reply.

A bit more info humidity is 94%

Did take the batteries out and started again read approx. correct for a couple of hours but has slowly crept to silly minus readings.

Have taken the plastic round thing off but that's reading -9.2 and 84% humidity at 19:43 on 29 Dec.

The unit is a sender that I purchased of ebay to replace a faulted on for a WH1081 but the current display is a maplin gadget one.

Really like having a weather display for outside temp, wind, rain fall. so would like to replace but not sure if going down ebay replacement parts is a false economy or is there something else out there? Note don't want to spend a lot even though a Davis is nice I just want something I can glance at in the shack or the conservatory.

Hi,

The age of the units can be significant because Fine Offset made some design changes about 3 years ago. The old design used separate temperature and humidity sensors as shown in the third post of this sticky thread. The newer design appears to use a combined module as shown towards the end of page 3 in the same thread. The old design could give bad temperature spikes or crazy temperatures if moisture got into the Wind cable (connectors), so it was worth checking with the Wind cable unplugged.

If it's a fairly recent Maplin Console then they sell a replacement transmitter for £15 and at least you'll have a warranty for a year. Alternatively, you might be able to find a "used" transmitter on ebay and then transfer the temp/hum module to your old tranmitter if it doesn't work. But there would be no guarantee of good calibration, or even reliable operation. BTW your humidity does look "plausible" for the current conditions.

Cheers, Alan.