Is there a way to read the Tx battery voltage from an ISS

[pete_c]

Just curious if there is a way to read the voltage from a Vantage Vue ISS?

Found a old Linux program for ISS connectivity that is supposed to show the Tx voltage on the battery.

I have not given it a try at this time.

[steve]

It's not available via the console as part of the serial protocol. I don't know if it's possible to read it using the wireless transmissions from the ISS.

[pete_c]

Thank-you Steve.

[mcrossley]

From what I remember, the ISS wireless protocol only sends a single bit for the battery 'condition', but is does send the super-capacitor voltage?

[pete_c]

Yup; yesterday a bit before sunset message went away until this morning.

Last fall took the ISS down for maintenance.

Over the winter made a new weather station mount painting the mast et al. type stuff.

In the spring mounted the new mast and installed the ISS.

I understand it is not recommended to install the ISS high up but I did just that making it much more difficult to get to.

I checked the battery voltage before starting the ISS up again. The voltage was fine but the battery was old (> 2 years). I had a new battery and just figured that I would utilize the old one until it expired.

It appears to have done that and I didn't expect it.



Here locally found the Duracell and Everyready branded Lithium CR123 for around $10 USD at the local store. They sold them in double and single packs. They are relatively both the same.

Installation will be next Monday or Tuesday. (IE: also using a Davis Vantage Pro II here).

[pete_c]

Here instead of installing just installing a new battery, removed mast and bracket and lowering the ISS to a lower easier to get to other roof on the top of the main floor of the home with an easy going slope. On the top part I had to slide down the roof to the ladder and have the gutter catch me a bit.

I had mounted it a bit too high. This said I had to climb on the roof and climb on top of the chimney to get to it which is a bit more of an effort these days for me.

Instead remove ISS, mast and mounting bracket.

Currently utilizing a Davis Vantage Pro II ISS at ground level which is easy to get to.

[philpugh]

I've just had someting similar. For two nights running data 'stopped about 23:30. CumulusMX reporting data appears to have stopped in the diagnostics log. Needed a reboot to start collecting data again.

There were no messages on the VantageVue console. I replaced the battery and all well last night. The last time the battery ran low I had several days warning I recall.

[pete_c]

Yup here had two batteries when I reinstalled the ISS. I know one was older than the other but the voltages were identical on the two batteries.

My console is using the AC adapter and batteries. I don't attention as it is always running. I am guessing if there is no juice to the console it will not chat with CumulusMX. The draw of the console is minimal though. I do not look at them right now (have two set up). I am considering putting one in the attic. I am testing an RPi2 running a bunch of stuff in the attic POE powered. Really only concern right now is wondering if the microSD card will melt.

I have one GPS / PPS board (for play) and the power mini USB fell off of it a few years back. It has been up there for almost 8 years now and functioning just fine and hitting some 10-12 satellites which works for me. I have other antennas in the attic that work just fine these days.

antenna.gif

Today using an RTC clock in the RPi2 talking to my NTP server. You can just connect a GPS with PPS to the RPi2 such that it has it's own time base very easily today.

ntpq -c clockvar
associd=0 status=00d2 13 events, clk_bad_format,
device="NMEA GPS Clock",
timecode="$GPRMC,145743.000,A,4134.4402,N,08800.6305,W,0.03,0.00,310715,,,D*7B",
poll=10857, noreply=1, badformat=12, baddata=0, fudgetime2=400.000,
stratum=0, refid=GPS, flags=5

GPS-NTP.gif

I am though doing a bunch of POE stuff here with backup power such that the RPi2 / CumulusMX / Davis Console will be installed using POE with backup.

On the ISS side of things looking to build a box of sorts with a couple of wireless cams (today just use wired cams), power, big battery and solar charger such that the ISS can take care of itself.