How can I clear cumulative rain from log data

[orphansdad]

While setting up my weather station I managed to create a significant rainfall reading on the station. I have cleared the memory but every time I connect the station for a new download this excessive cumulative rain appears again and I can't find how to get rid of it. I have even tried uninstalling Cumulus and deleting all the files and started again but it is still there. I know I can go into the text file to correct it but don't want to do this forever. The weather station is an Aercus WS2083, running v1.9.4 build 1099 Cumulus. I just don't understand where this piece of information is coming from. Help please before I pull all of my remaining hair out !

Robin

[mcrossley]

Robin,

Have you read through the FAQ section on correcting rainfall errors?
http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#My_sta ... _figure.29

Cheers

[orphansdad]

Thanks for the suggestion but yes, the dayfile reads correctly. From what I can make out the dayfile data is correct - It seems that the overall cumulative is stored somewhere else and that's what I need to correct. At the moment the only way I can correct it is through the excel file by creating a new column that subtracts the erroneous figure from the value generated by Cumulus. It's a way round it but it would be nice to find a way to get the correct readings direct from the download.

Robin

[bruce45]

have you looked at the todays rain under edit to correct the error or the day file txt editor

[mcrossley]

Bruce is right, correct it in the Cumulus today's rainfall editor. For information, the total in your station is held in the transmitter iirc. The editor will just reset what Cumulus uses as the total at the start of 'today' to get the figure you want (subtracting it from the total sent by the station).

[steve]

But it's presumably no longer today's rain. So if the issue is with the monthly and/or annual total, the solution is to edit the total(s) in dayfile.txt and restart Cumulus.

http://wiki.sandaysoft.com/a/FAQ#My_mon ... _are_wrong

[orphansdad]

Thanks for all the replies. I think the main problem is, as Bruce says, that the cumulative figure is held somewhere within my Aercus Station even though I've cleared the memory and even disconnected the batteries! but there seems to be no way of clearing it. The dayfile always has the correct data, it's the "jan15log.txt" file that somehow picks up the wrong data. I think I'll just have to continue what I'm doing to correct the data within excel and hope that possibly when we get to February it may correct itself. I've tried completely resetting the station and re-loading Cumulus and it didn't clear the fault and don't want to risk losing what data I've got again. It's not really that big a deal - just frustrating - as everything else is fine I may just have to live with it.

Not being an expert on PC related subjects I was surprised that connecting the USB to PC cable didn't come up with "removable drive" or something similar on my PC as it does when I connect a camera, satnav or phone so Cumulus seems to be the only way to interface with the weather station memory.

Just out of interest can someone explain how the weather station differs from the other types of device?

Thanks for the advice so far - I may try to contact the Aercus guys but meanwhile I'll just carry on as I've been doing so far....sorry for writing a book !

[sfws]

I do not know if this helps you.
Your weather station manual http://www.aercusinstruments.com/manuals/ includes this on page 10.

Rain
Press the MENU key four times to select the RAIN section, the RAIN section digits will start flashing. Press
the UP or DOWN key to change the period over which rain is measured (1h, 24h, Week, Month and Total
rain).
Note: The measurement intervals are rolling intervals. For example the 24 hour mode is a rolling 24 hours
so whenever you look at it it will show the rainfall for the immediately preceding 24 hours. If you look at it
at 8am Monday it will show the total rainfall from 8am Sunday through to 8am Monday. If you look at it at
9am Monday it will show the total rainfall from 9am Sunday through to 9am Monday and so on.
Press the ENTER key to select the following modes, then press the UP or DOWN key to set the value:
 Rainfall units - select between mm and inch.
 Rain high alarm (press ON/OFF to enable/disable). If the alarm is enabled, an alarm symbol
appears in the display.
 Maximum rainfall (since this was last reset). Resetting the maximum rainfall value - when both the
rain value and MAX icon are flashing, hold the ENTER key for 3s, the maximum rain value will be
reset to the current reading.
 Clearing Total rainfall - when both the Total rain value and the word CLEAR are flashing, hold the
ENTER key for 3s, the Total value will be reset to zero (1h, 24h, Week, and Month rain values will be
reset to zero automatically).

I am guessing that

that the cumulative figure is held somewhere within my Aercus Station even though I've cleared the memory

does not mean you have actioned the final sentence of instructions above ? You should try that.

Me and electronic stuff are likely to encounter every possible problem so I'm not the person to offer advice, but (AllyCat may confirm) I assume that the weather station will contain memory that will hold its contents (at least for a short time) even when power/batteries are disconnected.
My Fine Offset has given me several fairly trouble-fee years, but just a few times stupid rainfall amounts have been reported. I have cleared the problem by following the equivalent of that last paragraph in the quote for my station and following the Wiki instructions as necessary to correct anything that has made it through to Cumulus. As Steve says, once you have moved on from a day, it is only the subsequent changes in cumulative total that Cumulus processes, so from my quick read of this thread I do not understand why you think you have an ongoing problem, unless you are correcting so much in the monthly log you mess it up. In the few cases I have had, I just made a one-off correction.

I have a busy life (especially this week), so I will probably not re-visit this, but it might be you will need to zip the monthly and daily logs and post them with an explanation of what correction you have done, for someone else to help you to resolve it.

[mcrossley]

The point is, you do not have to clear the station memory. It is just a counter, all you needed to do was reset the count that Cumulus is using so that the difference between the two matches the total you want. However you can only do that on the day it happens.

Cumulus works by comparing it's total counter against the stations, the difference is the rain so far today, Cumulus hen resets it counter the match the stations at the daily rollover and starts again.

Resetting the stations counter to zero will not fix the bad data you have already recorded, you will have to do that by editing the files as Steve instructed. As you have already had a day rollover or two, Cumulus should not be recording additional rain each day, so you just have to fix the cumulative totals and the day total that is wrong.

[orphansdad]

Thanks again for all the suggestions. It may be that I didn't clear the right section - eg 24 hours rather than total when I thought I'd done it. I'll try that and let everyone know if it works.

If that doesn't work I think I'll just give up !

Cheers,

Robin

[bruce45]

if you have not sorted this could you upload/attach the jan15.txt log and I will have a look to see if I can see were the problem is and then let you no so you can then correct it. Steve has helped me out with this sort of problem in the past but he has other problems to look at just now.

[steve]

Use the dayfile.txt editor in Cumulus. Look for the "Total rainfall" column. Look for the day(s) with the incorrect totals and correct them. Click OK. Restart Cumulus. If that doesn't help, attach dayfile.txt here.

[orphansdad]

Hi Steve,

dayfile attached .....but as far as I can see there is no problem with it - the numbers for total rain are OK.
However if I look at the "Today's rain" file I can see where the error appears to be as it shows cumulative rain of 51.6 and this is the wrong data - it should be 15.9 but it can't be edited in the editing window.

I've tried clearing the total rain as suggested by a previous contributor but those instructions aren't shown in my manual and when I tried to follow them I ended up clearing the whole memory again. Not a big issue as I'd downloaded the data before I tried it so my excel file will be OK but it's still a nuisance to have the Cumulus data starting again. As soon as it re-starts it comes up with 51.6 as Total Rain, presumably picked up from the "Today's rain" file.

If there's no easy way to edit the cumulative rain in that file then I guess I'll just have to continue working round it as I've been doing. As I said earlier it's not a really big deal, just a nuisance that I can live with if necessary.

If this isn't an easy fix don't worry about it - I'm sure you must have more important things to do.

[steve]

Your total in dayfile.txt is 6.6, so that should be what Cumulus is showing for the current monthly and annual rainfall (plus any that has actually fallen today). What is Cumulus actually showing for those figures?

Where exactly is Cumulus showing the figure of 56.1 for "Total Rain"? I don't know what that item is. The total for what period?

If the "Today's rain" file you refer to is today.ini, that doesn't actually have a 'total rain' figure in it. Cumulus does not keep a 'total rain' figure anywhere.

[orphansdad]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for persevering with this - it must be a right pain when someone like me comes along.

The total rain value I'm getting is the 12th record in the log file - just after atmospheric pressure. I found the headings elsewhere in the forum and am using them to use the data in an excel file as it lets me "play" more with the data to produce different types of graphs. I should stress that to me this is just a "big boys toy" so not being used for anything critical.
Due to various mishaps the current log file starts on Jan 7 and it looks like I did lose data last time I cleared the memory - between about midnight on Jan 10th and 9.00pm on Jan 11 but you can see where the total rain comes straight back again even though most of the other values are zero.

I've attached 2 files - excel file of data downloaded and converted - column "L" is headed "Total Rain" and you can see that even after clearing the data in the weather station it comes back again with the wrong value. I've highlighted column L in yellow to make it easier to follow and highlighted the rows where the data was lost in blue.
I've also attached a word doc that shows a screen shot of the editing page where you can see "current rain counter" and "start of day rain counter" which seems to be where the wrong value keeps coming from. I assume that if this could be edited then maybe the overall cumulative value will be correct - unless this data is somehow coming from the weather station in spite of clearing the memory.

I guess the problem may be caused within the weather station and I may be wasting both my own and your time trying to resolve it so I won't mind if you want to give up on trying to solve the problem.

Thanks

Robin