Cumulus Support

The past few weeks i came across a Alecto WS4000 [= Fne Offset WH1081) and since then i'm interested in publishing weather data on the net. So far it works very very good in combination with Cumulus on a PC with Windows XP. For this reasen the PC has to be always on, wich generates a very large electrical bill.

That's why i'm thinking of using a thin client with Windows XPE [=XP embedded] for publushing the data on the net. The power consumption of such a thin client is somewhere between 10W-20W.

The question is now: Will CUMULUS run on such a thin client with XPE as an operating system???

Hope to here an answer

Regards


PS : Specs Thinclient
*VIA C3 550MHz processor
*256MB RAM and 256MB FLASHDISK
*max. resolution 1600x1200
*4 USB 1.1 ports
*Supports embedding of customer-selected local Windows 32-bit applications
*Microsoft Windows XP Embedded, Service Pack 1
*Local Windows XP desktop interface, also displays Windows desktops and applications via multiuser Windows NT and Windows 2000 servers
*Supports RDP and ICA protocols
*Connects to any VESA standard monitor
*10/100BaseT Fast Ethernet with WakeOnLan, one serial, one parallel, and two USB ports, PCI slot, integrated 802.11b option
*Remote management and configuration through Rapport™ for Wyse administrative software
*Built-in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0

I'm afraid I have no idea; the only way to know for certain is to try it. As I understand it, XPE provides the full Windows API, and Cumulus 1 is just a Win32 application, so you might expect it to work.

Okidoki.......



This week i'm picking up the earlier mentioned thinclient and start testing it......

Hopefully with positive result.


Perhaps has anyone else some experience with cumulus on a thinclient with XPE

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Hans

Hans,

I also wanted to reduce my power usage with my Cumulus software running 24/7. I chose to use an Asus EeeBox to have as my Cumulus PC running Windows 7. The power input is 12v from a small power pack. The power pack is rated 1.0amp at 230v and 3.0amp max at 12v.

I have a 12v lighting system running in my house powered from 2 x 85ah batteries charged from a solar panel. Eventually I want to power my Cumulus PC from these batteries. This will ensure that the computer and Cumulus are not affected by power outages.

Your idea of a thin client PC sounds really interesting. Let us know how it works.

Bob

UPDATE: IT WORKS

This week i've got my thinclient and i couldn't wait to try it out!
After a few hours of tryinh to understand how a thinclient works, i installed CUMULUS on the thinclient onto a USB [2GB] stick. Why?? So my data will always be saved, also in the case of a system crash or whatever glitch occures. I can remove my usb stick on continue on another pc with all my collected data en INI files.

Then i connected my weatherstation on the usb port. Cumulus saw my WS but didn't download all my data from the WS. Appereantly CUMULUS has problems reading all the data from the WS [data every 30min for 2 weeks] The solution was the collect the data on my Desktop PC and copy the files to the data folder on the thinclient/usb stick

That worked, now cumulus collect every 30 min the record from my WS, while on the same time it collects real data and upload it to my website every 15 seconds.
[and every 30min it generates the html pages and uploads it to my website, in combination with my data files]

So far so good.

The speed of my thinclient is of course not very high [CPU 500mHz/XPe SP1] but it does the job!!


Supplier specs about power consumption are : Thinclient with PS2 keybourd and mouse : 14Watts !!!!

My actual power consumption is unknwon but i shall measure it sometime this week.

For now it works, and i'm now in the process of building my website.

A preliminary view is available on : www.weerstation-zwijndrecht.tk


Hans

Excellent - thanks for letting us know.

Re downloading the historical data - this was presumably nothing to do with the thin client, but just the usual situation with a new Cumulus install? Did you try editing the today.ini file and it didn't work for some reason?

Well i erased all the files in the folder "DATA" so Cumulus would make them all new, but without the assumed result.


Hans

Hans,

It's a good feeling when things work. Congratulations!

Bob

Well it works almost......


I've discovered that 2 of the trend graphs are not build .....????
[ Temp min/max/avg and Daily rain, and yes id did rain last night]

At this point i've no idea why..!!

The graphs seem to be there. If you have historical data that it should be plotting, then the most likely problem is a corruption in dayfile.txt.

Thx for the advise...you were right

apperantly the date/time format was for a short period set to US instead of Dutvh so i got a file with mixed notations.....

It's working perfectly now

Visible at www.weerstation-zwijndrecht.tk