Stoooopid Questions

[Grumpy Moose]

New member here - hi.

OK, 2 totally ignorant questions. Yes I know I am an idiot, but none the less - I have a VP2 that's been running VWS flawlessly for the pat 5 years. I would like to update my website with Cumulus.

1. In the setup instructions it says to convert my USB datalogger to serial mode by:
a. installing some CP210X thingy, or
b. run WeatherLink and convert back to serial mode.

So which is it? Install the CP210X thing or run WeatherLink, or both - install the CP210X first thing THEN run Weatherlink. Or do I run WL first, then install the CP thing?

2. In the setup instructions it says to set the Datalogger and Cumulus intervals to the same setting. So how the heck do I find out what my Datalogger is set to?

Sorry about the gruff tone of my questions. See my user name. I just find as I get older, I notice more and more things that casually say "Oh, just do xyz" with no explanation of exactly HOW to actually do that.

Note, I've even spent the last 2 hours reading though old posts here and still haven't really found the answers. I just don't want to mess up my perfectly functioning weather station unless I know exactly what steps I'm supposed to do.

[steve]

First of all, please note that I don't actually own a USB logger, so it's hard for me to give precise instructions on what to do. There used to be quite a good post on the forum written by someone who does have one, with step-by-step instructions, and I used to point people at that. Unfortunately, the author of that post threw his toys out of his pram and deleted it because I wouldn't give him a special secret closed area in the forum that only people he invited could use.

Davis haven't helped the situation by having this 'USB express' mode situation in the first place, and providing drivers which don't seem to work well on all systems, so people have to go to the Silicon Labs site and download drivers from there. Davis also used to provide a utility on their site which switched the station back into serial mode, but heaven knows where that is now.

I would suggest that the best course of action would be to install Weatherlink and make sure you run it in serial mode (using instructions provided by Davis). If you find you have problems with that, try installing the latest drivers from Silicon Labs: http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Page ... ivers.aspx. Once you have WL running in serial mode, you can can use the COM port settings from WL in Cumulus and it should work.

Weatherlink will also tell you what interval your station's logger is set to. I'm surprised that you've been running it for 5 years and don't know. Details are in the Davis documentation. I'm sorry that my documentation isn't a complete guide to how to use your station. I believe the documentation for Cumulus is pretty good, but I simply cannot tell people how to do absolutely everything. It would be nice if someone who had been through all of this before could have added a FAQ, but so far no-one has.

Sorry about the gruff tone of my responses. I spend countless hours supporting Cumulus for free, and I find that no matter how much I do, it's never enough for some people.

[Grumpy Moose]

Steve - First of all, thanks for taking the time for the detailed response.

Davis haven't helped the situation by having this 'USB express' mode situation in the first place, and providing drivers which don't seem to work well on all systems, so people have to go to the Silicon Labs site and download drivers from there. Davis also used to provide a utility on their site which switched the station back into serial mode, but heaven knows where that is now.

I would suggest that the best course of action would be to install Weatherlink and make sure you run it in serial mode (using instructions provided by Davis). If you find you have problems with that, try installing the latest drivers from Silicon Labs: http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Page ... ivers.aspx. Once you have WL running in serial mode, you can can use the COM port settings from WL in Cumulus and it should work..

I guess I was hoping there would be an easy answer to this. Looks like there isn't. Likely I will just have to set aside an entire evening or more (maybe with a good bottle of wine) and figure this out the hard way. Like I said before, I just cringe at taking down a perfectly good station with no assurance of success (if it aint broke don't fix it)...

Weatherlink will also tell you what interval your station's logger is set to. I'm surprised that you've been running it for 5 years and don't know. Details are in the Davis documentation. I'm sorry that my documentation isn't a complete guide to how to use your station...

LOL. Yeah, 20 years ago I probably could have remembered what I set it to initially. Now, I'm lucky to remember 5 minutes ago where I put my glasses!

Sorry about the gruff tone of my responses. I spend countless hours supporting Cumulus for free, and I find that no matter how much I do, it's never enough for some people.

No need to apologize. We are obviously on the same page here!

First of all, please note that I don't actually own a USB logger, so it's hard for me to give precise instructions on what to do. There used to be quite a good post on the forum written by someone who does have one, with step-by-step instructions, and I used to point people at that. Unfortunately, the author of that post threw his toys out of his pram and deleted it because I wouldn't give him a special secret closed area in the forum that only people he invited could use. .

...I believe the documentation for Cumulus is pretty good, but I simply cannot tell people how to do absolutely everything. It would be nice if someone who had been through all of this before could have added a FAQ, but so far no-one has...

Well, If I get this figured out...I'll be sure to post detailed instructions for all to see...no strings attached!

-Derek

[steve]

Well, If I get this figured out...I'll be sure to post detailed instructions for all to see...no strings attached!

Thank you

This USB situation is particularly annoying because in theory Cumulus ought to be able to drive the station via USB, like VWS does, as the two programs use the same Davis DLL to drive the station. But it doesn't seem to work in Cumulus. I guess Ed is just a better programmer than I am

[RayProudfoot]

Moose,

I don't know if I can help you but I do have the VP2 USB data logger and have run the CP210X software. Having said that I had to set the VP2 up in Cumulus as Serial, not USB.

After installing the CP210X software it places an entry in Device Manager and identifies the COM port it's using.

You then configure Cumulus as Serial and enter that COM Port number and that should be that. You must reboot the PC before Cumulus will recognise that COM port. That caused me quite a headache until I realised I needed to reboot.

Things are slightly different on my system as I run http://www.softwx.com/weather/virtualvp.htmlVirtualVP which allows me to run more than one software package. That might appeal to you if you would like to keep VWS.

[PaulMy]

Hi Moose,
I don't run VWS but at the recommendation by Davis support run my USB datalogger as serial and can say that Weatherlink and Cumulus run very dependable (when not running at the same time). I no longer run WL regularly, only every 15 days to keep its data up to date, as VVP would cause frequent failure in running WL in Windows 7 (but Cumulus kept running fine) so happily using Cumulus for my local, website and uploads.

Paul

[Grumpy Moose]

Ray, Paul,

Thanks for the information. I am encouraged to hear that once the serial port issue is resoveld, Cumulus sounds like a very stable application.

The VirtualVP solution does intrigue me for it's flexibility. OTOH, simplicity and reliability are big with me as well. With my current configuration, I put togeter a dedicated computer to run VWS 5 years ago. Once I had the settings correct, I literally haven't messed with it since then (other than to change the spinning HD to an SSD). All I do is hit the switch to power it up in the morning as I head out to work, and shut it down again at night. I've even recenly installed a timer that automatically starts and stops the machine periodically during the day and night when we are away on vacation. However, I'm am now considering just leaving this computer running 24/7 for continuous website operation as it is such a power efficient (and quiet) PC. As long as Cumulus is a stable platform (which it sounds like it is) I would be OK to just set it, then forget it!

And it's not like I am particularly enamored with VWS or WL anyway!

[RayProudfoot]

Moose,

I'm a big fan of simplicity too. Once you setup VirtualVP you almost forget it's running. It's free for 30 days if you want to try it.

There are several weather software pacakages out there and it's a shame that you can only try one at a time. I run two - WeatherLink and Cumulus. I did consider WD but the horrendous interface put me off for life.

But before all that you need to make a decision about whether you want to install Cumulus. I discovered Cumulus soon after buying my VP2 3 years ago and have never regretted it. So many new features have been added by Steve making it a fantastic program. And it's totally stable, even the beta versions.

I run Cumulus on a netbook which has a very frugal power requirement. It runs 24/7. I would recommend you do the same. I never noticed any difference on my electricity bill.

[Grumpy Moose]

Moose,

I'm a big fan of simplicity too. Once you setup VirtualVP you almost forget it's running. It's free for 30 days if you want to try it.

There are several weather software pacakages out there and it's a shame that you can only try one at a time. I run two - WeatherLink and Cumulus. I did consider WD but the horrendous interface put me off for life.

But before all that you need to make a decision about whether you want to install Cumulus. I discovered Cumulus soon after buying my VP2 3 years ago and have never regretted it. So many new features have been added by Steve making it a fantastic program. And it's totally stable, even the beta versions.

I run Cumulus on a netbook which has a very frugal power requirement. It runs 24/7. I would recommend you do the same. I never noticed any difference on my electricity bill.

So does the installation of VirtualVP effect Cumulus? In other words, must I decide and install VirtualVP before Cumulus, or can it be installed and unistalled later/after Cumulus? I understand there are a few things in Cumulus that shouldn't be messed with after installation.

[RayProudfoot]

So does the installation of VirtualVP effect Cumulus? In other words, must I decide and install VirtualVP before Cumulus, or can it be installed and unistalled later/after Cumulus? I understand there are a few things in Cumulus that shouldn't be messed with after installation.

It does inasmuch as a different COM port will become available but that's the only issue. That can easily be changed in Cumulus. The biggest issue if you don't install VirtualVP is the data in the data logger. Once you've downloaded it into Cumulus you can't download the same data into VWS.

If you're not bothered about losing some data for VWS then stop it, install the Silicon driver utility and install Cumulus. Your weather data will be starting from scratch with Cumulus so you cannot continue to run VWS. But if you run VirtualVP you can run both programs and keep those 5 years of data.

[Grumpy Moose]

If you're not bothered about losing some data for VWS then stop it, install the Silicon driver utility and install Cumulus. Your weather data will be starting from scratch with Cumulus so you cannot continue to run VWS. But if you run VirtualVP you can run both programs and keep those 5 years of data.

That's a good point. So if I decide to use VirtualVP do I still need to install the Silicon driver utility, or does VirtualVP include that functionality itself as well?

[Grumpy Moose]

Ooops, never mind. Looks like VirtualVP is no longer available. I get this message from the website:

Because of demands on my time related to health issues of a family member, I am temporarily removing StartWatch and VirtualVP from being available for download, and removing the registration pay buttons

[steve]

The biggest issue if you don't install VirtualVP is the data in the data logger. Once you've downloaded it into Cumulus you can't download the same data into VWS.

You can. The station doesn't delete data when it's been downloaded, and doesn't keep track of which software downloaded what and when. You can repeatedly download the same logger data into different programs.

[RayProudfoot]

Ooops, never mind. Looks like VirtualVP is no longer available. I get this message from the website:

Because of demands on my time related to health issues of a family member, I am temporarily removing StartWatch and VirtualVP from being available for download, and removing the registration pay buttons

I would have answered your earlier question first but in the light on this one it changes your options. You're limited to one software package now. The Silicon driver is still needed as that will convert your PC to be able to assign a COM port to Cumulus. Without it you're stuck with USB but it's been 3 years since I setup my system so my memory is a little vague on whether I tried Cumulus with the USB option.

Given you cannot run both VWS and Cumulus you now have to decide how to proceed. You won't lose anything by trying Cumulus and if it doesn't work out just revert to VWS.

[RayProudfoot]

You can. The station doesn't delete data when it's been downloaded, and doesn't keep track of which software downloaded what and when. You can repeatedly download the same logger data into different programs.

Thanks Steve. I didn't think that was possible but Moose's options are now limited because of the situation with VVP.