Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

[grumpazoid]

Hi.

I woke up today to find the error light flashing and a whole stream of "lost sensor contact" errors every 10 seconds.
My station has worked perfect for over a year so I assumed bad batteries in the transmitter and replaced them.
However I still get the same problem.
The receiver console (Ive tried new batts in this as well) shows all the data fine but it does not seem to be transmitting it via USB anymore.
I have tried easyweather and that will not show the data either. I have even tried easyweather on another pc with the same results so I am fearful my receiver/display unit has gone kaput.

Any Ideas much appreciated.

Rupert

[steve]

If you zip up the diags folder and attach it, I can see what Cumulus thinks the station is doing (if anything).

You could try a full reset of the station, or perhaps just clearing the memory.

[wd40]

Might try a different USB port as well.

Randy

[steve]

Might try a different USB port as well.

Good suggestion, but he's tried a different PC, so that probably covers that one

[grumpazoid]

Thanks for the replies. Diags folder attached.
Sorry I have searched in vain - how do I do a full reset?

I have cleared the memory as per the manual. I have also left the batteries out of tx and rx for 2 hours.
Another thing is that when I changed the batteries in the transmitter the rain data all got reset to 0. This was prior to clearing the memory.

Thanks
Rupert

[wd40]

Might try a different USB port as well.

Good suggestion, but he's tried a different PC, so that probably covers that one

Nuts! i thought I had a good one.


When my console would not talk to the pc, I noted in Easy Weather, you could not save the setup. The customer support guy agreed it was a good indicator of a console problem-USB cable problem. Interesting, the guy said they had never had a cable failure.

[steve]

It seems to have stopped writing the data to its memory. The memory location which holds the location of the current data area is zero, which is invalid; the data area starts at address 0100 hex.

If a reset hasn't fixed this, it looks to me like it's broken. The full reset I had in mind was just what you've done, i.e. remove the batteries for a while - but you did also unplug the USB cable at the same time?

[grumpazoid]

Thanks for looking Steve.

Yes, USB unplugged so it was totally off.

Doh!

[apenwith]

Hi
I think Gina posted something about poor soldering on the USB port. Is the 10 seconds absolutely regular - I just wonder if the USB cable is picking up interference- it should be shielded so that should not happen but - an electric fence nearby maybe . Or is the PC trying to use something on another USB port that conflicts with the read time?
Regards
Alan

[steve]

The 'sensor contact lost' message is spurious. The station is telling Cumulus to read the wrong section of memory, and the bit which corresponds to that flag just happens to be set.

[Gina]

Yes, my first Console had bad solder joints on the USB connector. It also had a faulty USB cable which was intermittent - OK at first but got worse as time went by until it failed totally.

[grumpazoid]

Well I think I will take the console into work and open it up just in case it is a dry joint or bad connection somewhere. Nothing to lose I guess.

[grumpazoid]

Just a quick update which may help some others in the future. I found an old post relating to a similar problem. Advice from Steve was to go into easyweather and alter the update interval. I have tried this and I am getting readings on the PC again. Hooray.

[grumpazoid]

Aaargh. It worked for about an hour but now the readings shown on the PC are out of date. Looks like it needs replacing after all. I've realised a few days under 1 year so should be able to get it swapped. Fingers Crossed.

[grumpazoid]

Replacement console received and installed. Working as before.