Data flat line

[hurring]

Hi All,
I have noticed lately that for some reason my data flat lines if you look at trends. The station display is still updating but for some reason it stops talking to Cumulus (1.8.9). Cumulus is still updating my website with the last data it received. I have found if I close Cumulus and restart some times that fixes it and other times it doesn't. On all occasions it is able to download data from the station. I normally need to do a reboot. I have tried setting usb power to stay on etc. I thought maybe it is the usb connection that some have had issues with but cumulus is able to download data every time I restart it, or does it and am I just seeing the box say it does download???
any ideas??
thanks
Adrian
Update, I have just tried reboot, start/stop cumulus and I can not get it to talk. Display on station is still updating with wind speed, direction etc. Now I am stumped!!

[Gina]

Sounds like a USB connection problem. Many of these units have been found to have poor soldering on the USB connector on the console. Cables too have been found faulty. I had a faulty supplied USB cable which was intermittent then failed completely. Might be worth trying another USB cable - you need a USB-A plug to USB-A plug type cable.

[hurring]

Thanks Gina,
I have tried changing cables and same thing. The thing that puzzles me is that cumulus can retrieve data when I restart it but does not display the live feed. Does Cumulus actually get the data or does it just show a box saying it is?
Adrian

[hurring]

Well I opened the unit up and the solder joints look clean and strong. Put it back and worked fine. Data then flat lined again last night. I did nothing and was not at home but it started working all by its self again at about 11am. It has now just stopped again at about 1630 hrs. I closed cumulus and restarted. Showed downloading data and now not showing active data. I am at a loss.
Adrian

[Gina]

Intermittent faults are the very devil to find. It sounds like the console unit as it started working again then stopped. It is unlikely to be Cumulus. I don't know if Cumulus just "appears" to download data, Steve or maybe someone else may answer that. Not knowing just how familiar you are with soldering and dry joints (and not wishing to insult you), solder "blobs" may sometimes look OK but beware ones that are too big and don't show the outline of the wire, these have been known to hide a dry joint. Other causes of intermittent faults I have come across include a cracked circuit board resulting in broken tracks that were fine cold but opened up when warm but I doubt it's that.

Apart from the console, I guess it could be something in the computer affecting USB - something else you could check. eg. loose connectors, poor contact on interface boards, etc.

May not help but there are a few thoughts...

[Gina]

I've made a drawing of cross-sections of solder joints showing a good joints and two bad ones with dirt or corrosion on component wire or circuit pad. Hope this is helpful. I'm afraid the resolution has suffered in conversion from PS to PNG format.

Solder-Joints2.png

[hurring]

Thanks Gina, No insult received here. The solders are perfect, I'm no expert but I do tinker every now and then. I am thinking it is something sinister with my unit as the barometer is all over the place as well. I may have to save my pennies and buy a new system.

[Gina]

Thanks Gina, No insult received here. The solders are perfect, I'm no expert but I do tinker every now and then. I am thinking it is something sinister with my unit as the barometer is all over the place as well. I may have to save my pennies and buy a new system.

I agree, it doesn't look good. How long have you had your system? I presume it's not still under warranty.

[hurring]

Hey Gina,
I have had it for around 9 months. Problem is I purchased from a store seller on Ebay. I have sent them an email asking what the warranty was 2 weeks ago but they have not responded. For the price of it I am not sure if it is worth sending to the manufacturer.
Adrian

[Charlie]

Hi Adrian,

I had a couple thoughts to maybe isolate where the issue is before you scrap the system.
1) Have you tried resoldering the USB pins on the console even though they look good? Most of the issues seem to be with cold joints. It's not a lot of effort to resolder just in case. Be sure to use flux. Also replace the USB cable - not just for a brief trial, but at least until you see another flatline.
2) Inspect the USB connector pins on the console, and maybe clean them. I've liberated an emery board intended for finger nails from my wife that works well to remove corrosion from USB connectors left outside. I would not recommend doing it regularly, but you've nothing to lose at this point.
3) Try another USB port on your machine - preferably one connected to a different interface device. It's a pretty robust technology but they can fail in strange ways.
4) Does your PC throw any error when this happens? I have found a bad USB mouse that would work fine for days. Then Cumulus would flatline, I could not adjust volume on my soundcard, and network shares would not open. (It took awhile to discover there were more faults than just the flatline). After a reboot, everything was happy until the next time. I replaced the mouse for giggles, and it has not happened since. I suspected it because the issue started a few days after I changed mice. Windows would report an exception when it was restarted.
5) Long shot.. Have you tried downloading the data with EasyWeather to completely confirm there is no flatline in the stored data? Once you've got bad data in Cumulus it can be the devil to get it all out - you may be chasing ghosts. You might even want to run EasyWeather for a bit to confirm the same behaviour. When you go back to Cumulus the data will be downloaded to catch up, so you don't really lose anything.
6) If you've got another PC, try using it for a couple days to see if it also has the flatline.

[steve]

If you zip up your diags files and attach them, I'll have a look to see if there are indications that Cumulus is having difficulty connecting to your station.

[hurring]

Thanks Steve,
I have now tried a usb port on the back of the PC as well, will see how that goes.
here are the diag files.
Adrian

[steve]

Yes, it looks like your station keeps dropping off the USB (not necessarily physically unplugged, but not able to be contacted). Lots of USB connect/disconnect activity:

3/05/2010 10:02:10.273 : 10:02:10 AM EWUSB: HidControl Device Unplug
3/05/2010 10:02:10.273 : EWUSB: HidControl Device Removal
3/05/2010 10:02:10.273 : 10:02:10 AM EWUSB: HidControl Device Unplug
3/05/2010 10:02:10.273 : EWUSB: HidControl Device Removal
3/05/2010 10:02:10.273 : 10:02:10 AM EWUSB: HidControl DeviceChange
3/05/2010 10:02:11.242 : EWUSB: HidControl Device Removal
3/05/2010 10:02:11.242 : 10:02:11 AM EWUSB: HidControl DeviceChange

I also noticed this, which may or be not be related:

3/05/2010 10:01:31.592 : EWUSB: Read pressure values: rel=1349.3 abs=1690.8 offset =-341.5

Your station's pressure reading is way too high - is this reflected on the console?

[hurring]

Gday Steve,
The pressure jumps all over the place on the console. I think I have a faulty unit. I might try what has been suggested and resodler the USB plug. Would the pressure jumping cause it to disconnect??? The connect disconnect you have posted there were me this morning trying to get the unit to reconnect again. It had flat lined just after 11.30pm on 2/5/10. I am at work at the moment and I can see it has flat lined again just after 1pm 3/5/10.
Adrian

[steve]

I don't think the pressure problem is causing the disconnect problem, but it may well be another symptom of the problem, and it does sound like your station is faulty.