Cumulus Support

RaDiOalarm wrote: Easyweather are reading data differently from Cumulus.

Easyweather and Cumulus almost certainly read the data differently. The author of Easyweather has access to the official technical documents and therefore knows what he's doing. Easyweather doesn't cope with a 0900-0900 day as Cumulus does, so can use more of the station data and do less for itself. Etc...

Because I've definitely resetted all rain a few times

I'm sure I've read a number of times on the forum about resetting the rain counter; I think it's held in NVRAM and takes a bit of getting rid of. It's held in the transmitter, by the way, not the station. You did reset the tranmitter?

steve wrote:I'm sure I've read a number of times on the forum about resetting the rain counter; I think it's held in NVRAM and takes a bit of getting rid of. It's held in the transmitter, by the way, not the station. You did reset the tranmitter?

No, I didn't, as it is not very easy to reach. All manuals state that rain reset is done through station, and I got all zeroes on the screen for day/month/total rain. I'll try it next time when I'll be on the roof.

I've been relocating my sensors to try to get more accurate results. I had everything at the top of a 10ft pole which I've since found is wrong for the temperature/humidity sensor and rain gauge. Resulting from moving the rain gauge I got interference from an electric fence and clocked up 2m of rain in two hours!! I sorted that out and have stopped the interference. Now I need to fix the recorded data. I've edited the Cumulus data files to put them right but every time Cumulus downloads data the total rainfall is back to metres of it! And it gets worse - now I'm getting around 3m ie. 3,000mm of total rainfall. I can't seem to clear the console memory and can't find anything in Easy Weather to fix it either.

Suggestions please.

If it's today's rain, you need to edit the Start= figure in today.ini to make it correspond to the total rainfall counter.

steve wrote:If it's today's rain, you need to edit the Start= figure in today.ini to make it correspond to the total rainfall counter.

Yes, I've done that.

I've got rid of the data stored in the console (couldn't do it by pressing functions on the display). I unplugged the USB and removed the batteries - that did it. Bit drastic I agree but I don't mind starting again as it's a new year.

After clearing the station stored data I edited all the Cumulus data and ini files again but STILL I'm getting 3,000mm of rainfall!! Where on earth could this be coming from???

The only thing I can think of now is to backup my data (in case it can be used later) and reinstall Cumulus.

Gina wrote:The only thing I can think of now is to backup my data (in case it can be used later) and reinstall Cumulus.

Done that and still I'm getting over 3m of rainfall. So that eliminates Cumulus and proves it's stored in the station.

quote from my W-8681 Operation manual:

"
Rain
1)Touch the rain section. +button and -button will be flashing. Touch the +button or -button to shift the display between 1h,24h,week,month and total rain.
.........
4)Touch the rain section the fourth time to display current maximum rain fall record. Touch the rain section for 3s will reset the maximum rain fall value to current value.
5)Touch the rain section the fifth time to reset rain fall value to 0 by pressing the rain section for 3s,then 1h,24h,week,minth and total rain will be reset to 0.
"
Did you do that? you may have to go thru the steps for each of the settings: 1h, 24h, week, month and total to be sure
If all that does not help, maybe removing the batteries in the console and the transmitter and leaving them out for, say, 15 mins will do the trick.
Good luck

Thank you very much Fixed it! I don't think I could have pressed the rain section enough times yesterday. Anyway the 3064 mm total rainfall is now gone form the console Now to edit out the errors from the Cumulus data files.

Hi Gina.

Dont no if its anything todo with you updating but your record page isnt showing for me.

scoobs wrote:Hi Gina.

Dont no if its anything todo with you updating but your record page isnt showing for me.

Hi scoobs

I've been spending "hours" trying to get this sorted out and finally got rid of the rogue rainfall readings. Yes, at one stage I uninstalled and reinstalled Cumulus. I may see about reinstating last year's records - I have them backed up. I moved historical data out of the way while I was "playing" so that it didn't get corrupted.

I think the thing that finally got rid of the rogue rainfall reading was removing the batteries from the transmitter (they wanted replacing anyway - I was getting a low battery indication). I had already tried removing all the power from the console and clearing all the stored console data - both the main memory and rain values - plus editing Cumulus data many times.

Manually editing the cumulus data is a very tedious and time consuming job. If I find time I might look at producing a little prog to handle rogue rainfall data. I think quite a number of people could have this sort of problem, be it interference or simply moving the rain gauge. I'll have to see what programming tools I have for Windows (I've moved over to Linux mainly now). I know Steve doesn't have the time and I would like to contribute to Cumulus if I can.

Gina wrote: If I find time I might look at producing a little prog to handle rogue rainfall data. I think quite a number of people could have this sort of problem, be it interference or simply moving the rain gauge. I'll have to see what programming tools I have for Windows (I've moved over to Linux mainly now). I know Steve doesn't have the time and I would like to contribute to Cumulus if I can.

Hi Gina

I was thinking of picking up this challis too. Currently I am trying to get my head around all the areas that need tweaked in order to settle/fix/cancel out rain.

I've been thinking recently that I really need to take some time to write that "Cumulus guide to rainfall", because although it's quite straightforward from where I'm sitting (although admittedly a tedious pain to correct an aberrant jump in the reading if it happened a while ago), people clearly struggle with it. I think the fact that with Fine Offset stations, what Easyweather displays and what the console displays have nothing at all to do with what Cumulus sees, is perhaps the confusing part.

I think this document would also be useful to anyone who wants to attempt to write a utility to help with editing the data!

Rainfall seems to be the most troublesome aspect of these weather stations. Yes, Steve, I agree, a guide to rainfall would be a good idea