Cumulus Support

Hi, New to this forum but I have been using Cumulus since 6 October after I purchased a La Crosse WS 2306 at end of September of this year:

http://www.sontax.millstream.com.au/vie ... ts/ws2306/

and I have been running Cumulus on a Laptop to download from the data logger at 10 min intervals at the end of each day. The Station came with a serial cable for the data connection but my laptop has only has usb ports. To use the weather station with my laptop I needed a serial to usb converter, which I hope would work, worried by data problems La Crosse station can have.

I bought a usb converter from my local electronics store which I paid $80 for and I have not had a single problem. All data is downloaded perfectly to Heavy Weather (which comes with the station which I don’t like) and Cumulus. I have not had a problem with using this La Crosse station with Cumulus. Must be a good converter to not any corrupt data and spikes in the data.
I have been observing and recording the weather since April 2009 using a basic Oregon Scientific, followed by a La Crosse WS 1600IT making manual records. For many year I am have recording the rain with a manual gauge. The additional weather station allows me to extend my recording apart min and max hum , humidity, max wind gust and so on.

The reason why I am still using both La Crosse units is that because the outdoor units can’t be too far apart (10 metres) I had to put the temp sensor in a spot under the eaves on the north side of the house as this is the only spot in the yard away from buildings and trees and direct sun that would affect the readings, but it does receive radiant heat from the garden.
I know you can extend the cables but I do occasionally lose signal (especially in the first week of running and since then I have not a problem) and extending cables is not something I am keen on, and would be too long for extending it any way.

To site the temp sensor in the right spot without going into shields which I don’t think would help in my case as it seems, would to be the other side of the house which is too long for the cable. At this location it would be exposed to the weather and I would get good readings like as it is now but that would compromise my wind readings with the surrounding trees on that side.

At the front porch where the WS 1600 IT sensor is located is ideal for the day time recordings but I got the new weather station to capture the overnight min and max ( min temp and max humidity) because the porch is protected from the elements and records milder overnight temperature than it actually is. However under the eaves at the current spot overnight tempertures are prefect but the day time ones are not.

Under the eaves elsewhere it either receives direct sunlight or radiant heat from the yard. Anyway between the two station and the help of Cumulus, I have been combining the good min and max readings from weather stationd onto spreadsheets like I had been doing before and so I get good results. But everthing about cumulus are fine such as the graphs. Looks like I had sucess with the La Crosse weather station. Must be lucky.

Anyway Steve you are doing a great job and I have been enjoying using Cumulus.
BTW the help file, wiki and the installation are very useful and full of information.

Matt.j5b wrote:Looks like I had sucess with the La Crosse weather station. Must be lucky.

I suspect you bought a good quality USB adapter, which supports DTR and RTS correctly.

steve wrote:

Matt.j5b wrote:Looks like I had sucess with the La Crosse weather station. Must be lucky.

I suspect you bought a good quality USB adapter, which supports DTR and RTS correctly.

Its a Belkin USB/Serial Portable Adapter, model F5U-409-CU from Dick Smith
and I did cost $80 so it must be a good one for that price, but it is worth it as it as not caused any problems

I also had to obtain a Windows 7 driver as it only came with XP and Vista as Belkin didnt actally produce the driver themselves
Once I got the device working and once it worked Cumulus I am very glad about that.

Hi matt,

Welcome to the forum, i was wondering if you had any pics of your sensors of the la crosse unit, I have been using a davis vantage Vue and it has had some issues.

Cheers

Brian

Hi Brian
Thanks for the welcome. Find attached some pics of my sensors.

For your information the La Crosse used a temp/hum sensor which is located under the eaves at the top of the window and the wind and rain sensors conect via cable to the the temp/ hum sensor for data connection and then runs via wireless 433mhz to indoor base station but you can run it cable if you wish. As I said in my first post in this topic I also have a ws1600IT that uses similar sensors on a different frequency of 915mhz but the temp/hum sensor is at the patio with the wind and rain sensors running with cable. Both rain and wind sensor for both stations are mounted on top of the greenhouse because it's open to the elements for good readings and pretty much level for the rain sensor to read correctly with a little adjustment. Plenty of room for my sensors.

Now you said you been having issues, well it may as well help you. Mounting the sensors can be hard to get right especially if you dont have the ideal conditions. The temp/hum sensor has to be out of direct sun and radiant heat from the ground, walls etc, the rain gauge has to in a open area away from trees and buildings which will reduce the rain and the wind sensor also open to the open air without too much in the way. You having a Davis Vue which I don't know too much about but I know all the sensors are in one unit. This makes it a bit hard because the wind sensor need to be high and the temp/hum sensor needs to be lower. I guess it depends on your location to try to find a balance. I hope my setup gives some ideas. I doesnt really bother me that for example for day time max temp is too high because the other sensor is in the sheltered patio. And wind sensor is not at 10m, I just multiply the wind figures by 4 to get a 10m recording.

Hope that helps

Just saw these pics - and have to say I hope they are no longer in these positions?

Wind vane would be next to useless - how can it possibly get proper wind information from (wrt the pics) the back and LHS of the vane? The temp sensor attached to a metal fly screen door is goiong to be spo obviously wrong....

Must say - maybe a new thread should be started here - 'How not to set up an electronic weather station.'

Matt of Brisbane, I have been following your conversations in here as well as well as in the Manual recordings on website forum thread.

Looking at the pictures you have recently posted, I now understand why you have (need) to correct almost all of the data produced by your weather station (by incorporating your own corrections and data obtained from surrounding weather stations) - your weather station has been installed at one of the poorest location!

The only properly (adequately) located sensor is the rain unit - the anemometer (wind speed) and wind direction units should be located a few feet/meters above the peak of the roof - the thermo-hygro unit should be moved out of the window area to a more opened better ventilated location.

As hinted by 'serowe', you should really read more on how to site a weather station (how to install the sensors in the appropriate location) in order to get decent (and a bit more accurate) readings from your weather station without having to continually (and incorrectly) adjust the readings and even before posting those inaccurate reading on your web pages...

I relocated the temp sensor ages ago. I know that is a bad spot, it recorded overnight perfectly but not daytime where it recorded way too high, that is why I moved. It is really a balance because I can't put out in the rain, its weatherproof but not waterproof and making a shield is beyond me. That is why I moved it to the patio with good readings except for the overnight readings because it too protected. The wind reading is the best spot I can find, the south side of the house is worst, because it is pergola with a few short plam trees with a meduim tree and a gum like tree to the southeast and a double storey house to the south. . I know the peak of the roof is above the sensor but there are less trees at that side. I think moving it would create more trouble. However readings for the temp and humidity on the south side would be good and while I can't actally move the stations to the south side because the wind would record better on the north side I will use a sensor from a spare station to record the overnight.

As described here https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6574 I relocated the temp sensor but did not post pics of that, so it been a while since I had in the poorest of spots. I understand where would be a good spot but I have to keep the wind sensor within 10 metres of the temp sensor, and I only can locate them where it would work and not get rained on. I would site it in more open spot if I could but that is not possible as I have said.

I spent time editing out those bad records out of Cumulus and while I cannot site the station to report temps accurate to both overnight and daytime on the north side, adding a senosr to south side will help, because the wind readings on the south will be worst and the rain recordings would be ruined. Unless I want to compromise the wind and rain to get better temp and humidity.