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Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sat 16 Oct 2010 10:24 am
by 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

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sat 16 Oct 2010 10:43 am
by 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.

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sat 16 Oct 2010 11:05 am
by wd40
Might try a different USB port as well.

Randy

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sat 16 Oct 2010 11:18 am
by steve
wd40 wrote:Might try a different USB port as well.
Good suggestion, but he's tried a different PC, so that probably covers that one :lol:

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sat 16 Oct 2010 1:08 pm
by 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

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sat 16 Oct 2010 1:08 pm
by wd40
steve wrote:
wd40 wrote:Might try a different USB port as well.
Good suggestion, but he's tried a different PC, so that probably covers that one :lol:
Nuts! i thought I had a good one.
:lol:

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.

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sat 16 Oct 2010 1:35 pm
by 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?

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sat 16 Oct 2010 3:19 pm
by grumpazoid
Thanks for looking Steve.

Yes, USB unplugged so it was totally off.

Doh!

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sun 17 Oct 2010 10:24 am
by 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

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sun 17 Oct 2010 10:54 am
by 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.

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sun 17 Oct 2010 12:11 pm
by 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.

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Sun 17 Oct 2010 1:44 pm
by 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.

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Mon 18 Oct 2010 12:46 pm
by 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.

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Tue 19 Oct 2010 8:02 am
by 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.

Re: Lost sensor contact but receiver shows data ok.

Posted: Fri 22 Oct 2010 10:39 am
by grumpazoid
Replacement console received and installed. Working as before.