Cumulus Support

I own a WH-1081 (actually a Alecto WS-4000, operating at 868MHz)

Not one single problem (since july 2011).
However, the UV / light sensor of the WH-3081 might be a nice extra.

Is this option just a gimmick, or really accurate and useful?
(I think the console of the WH-308x has a much better display than the WH-108x. Not important for me, I only monitor with Cumulus (sometimes), or the published pages (often).

Any experience from upgraders?

Read this topic first,
https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6394

henkg wrote:Is this option just a gimmick, or really accurate and useful??

Hi,

IMHO mainly the former. The best features of the 308x are in fact the Console display, much clearer and with some improvements in the firmware and hardware. But the UV readings appear to be nonsense and I'm not sure how one would use the (diffused) Lux reading, even if it is accurate.

Apart from the current (potential) unreliability issues I believe that FO have made a fundamental design mistake in attaching the Solar Pod directly onto the transmitter/"Stevenson screen". The solar sensors generally need to be near the top of the mast with the wind sensors (i.e. in direct sunlight) but the temperature/hygro and rain sensors much nearer to ground level and shaded. As designed, it isn't even possible to optimise at the same time the directions of both the PV cell and the Radio Controlled Clock antenna (if you actually have a 1080 equivalent).

However, I must admit that my friend insisted that I reinstall her 3080 as soon as possible (with a new Solar Pod) since she much prefers it to the 1080 which I substituted temporarily.

Cheers, Alan.

Thanks for replies. Tt took some time to read the complete thread about the solar sensor problems. I think I should go for the Mk2, and even then this option might be just a gimmick.

Reading the WH-3081 manual, the only mounting place for the UV sensor is on top of the transmitter. An awkard place. The transmitter should be located in the shade. Not the best place for a solar sensor .
However, from the pictures in the manual I read that the solar sensor has a (short?) cable, with a rj11 plug.

My question, to a WH-3081 owner: Will this work:
- Extend the solar sensor cable
- Place the solar sensor somewhere else (for me: near the rain sensor)
- Close the top gap of the transmitter housing with some kind of a plug, to prevent water leakage.

I was using the 3080 and I had so much trouble with it I recently took it down and threw it in the garage in disgust I would not touch Fine Offset again even if you gave me a thousand euros

henkg wrote:I read that the solar sensor has a (short?) cable, with a rj11 plug.

My question, to a WH-3081 owner: Will this work:
- Extend the solar sensor cable
- Place the solar sensor somewhere else (for me: near the rain sensor)
- Close the top gap of the transmitter housing with some kind of a plug, to prevent water leakage.

Hi Henk,

No, it's not as simple as that. The (very short) "solar" cable appears to be threaded through the hole in the top of the "Stevenson Screen" before the plug is attached, so it looks to be necessary to cut off the plug to fully remove the Pod from the screen. You might be able to unsolder the connections within the Pod, but they are covered with sealant (as shown in the photos in another thread).

Also the cable has 6 cores so the plug is a "6p6c", commonly known as an RJ12, which is not as easy to find (a few here in the UK from kenable/Ebay) as the normal 4p4c. Generally it would be unusual to locate the rain sensor (which should to be low down) near to the solar sensor (which might need to be almost as high as the wind sensors), so the rain cable (to the Solar Pod) might also need extending (but that only requires two cores terminated with RJ11).

Probably the simplest general solution is to use a RJ45 (8 cores) Network Cable with RJ45 couplers each end and make short custom 'Y' splitter/adapter cables to interface with the RJ11/12 of the FO units. I don't know if the rain sensor signals for the WH308x must be "daisy chained" through the Solar Pod (which would be possible using 8 cores RJ45) or if they could be connected directly to the Transmitter unit (which might reduce the extension cable requirement to 4 cores, albeit with modified pinning). Perhaps somebody will test this (hint), I might sometime but I'm currently more interested in my own project of adding "solar" data to the standard WH108x family (perhaps to be described in detail here soon).

Cheers, Alan.

Thanks Alan,

This is precisely the kind of information I was looking for. Good to know about the 6p6c.
(A location near my rain sensor is fine for me: I want to monitor the light (and rain) the plants on my balcony receive).

And of course: should I buy one, and apply a mod, then I will post my findings on this forum.

Henk.