Diagnosis and Repair of WS-2080 Wind Velocity Sensor

[NO0C]

Good day all,

I thought I would share my experience with my new Weatherwise WS-2080. I received my station Tuesday past, and assembled it per the instructions enclosed. Everything appeared to be working with the exception of the wind velocity.

On Thursday I finally make contact with Weatherwise and Brian said they would send out a new velocity sensor. I hadn't been off the phone with him for 30 minutes and I noticed the wind velocity was working. Nothing short of magic I guess.

I hadn't been so surprised since the hogs ate my brother.

BTW, the sensor was shipped Friday as promised and if the horse doesn't throw a shoe between Pennsylvania and Nebraska, I'll have it sometime this week.

In the back of my mind, I knew it wouldn't last, and sure as the world is round, late Saturday evening the wind speed display went AWOL. Knowing I had a new sensor on the way, I decided to take a peek and see what was the problem inside of the sensor. Once disassembled it was a lead pipe cinch what was wrong and a work around was a simple solution, only requiring a soldering pencil, solder and a short piece of solid jumper wire. The problem was very easy to spot, especially with the macro+ pictures from my Kodak Z990. The trace was broken on the PCB that was the path from one pole of the micro-switch to the green wire out of the PCB. A quick check with an ohmmeter confirmed the snafu. Also the outboard solder joints of the micro-switch were not soldered or poorly soldered, not that they have to be, but I repaired all solder joints on the board. Getting to the board only requires the removal of 3 screws and then removing the 2 PCB mounting screws. A little pull with a pick lifts the board off the mounting studs.

Here are the pictures from the adventure. It's back up in it's perch and working great after simply repairing under par assembly techniques. The soldering would have gotten a D- grade, if not an F.



The opposite side of the board where the output wires are located.





The PCB back in it's nest.



Because the strain relief of the lead was done with a shoddy knot, I replaced the knot with a nytie, which also gave me more lead length, that I truly needed to get to the wind direction sensor.



Thanks for your time and thanks for a great forum. I have learned a lot in a very short time.

What a great product Cumulus is ! Steve.

Regards from Husker Nation,

[Orion]

WOW that's what you call an etching fault
FO need to tighten up their inspection and test
or perhaps they don't bother

[mtasgrandad]

The problem I had with the wind speed sensor was the bearing had siezed solid.

There are some excellent photos on other entries, please use these as reference.

I removed the rotating section by the use of two screw drivers lifting opposite sides of the centre part. This exposed the bearing which was removed by cutting off the moulded plastic retainer.

The replacement bearing was obtained from www.simplybearings.co.uk type MR105-2RS-MB

On the bearing has rubber bushes on each side of the bearing cage. Remove one side, then clean the bearing in Petrol (the type used in cigarette lighters as this is does not contain any of the nasties that 4 star does) replace the bearing with the rubber bush on the down side. The bearing can if needed be, held in place using a self tapping screw, but take care that you do not split the centre by using an oversized screw.

A further piece of advice do not use WD40 an when it dries it leaves a deposit that will cause the unit to spin slowly.

[foxpup]

I would like to thank NO0C for going to the trouble to provide excellent pictures of the repair process of his wind speed sensor. I also had to deal with a badly soldered reed switch and then I was good to go. My wind sensor system now has "Both Direction And Magnitude!!" "Oh Yea!! Oh Yea!!" (apologies to those who haven't seen "Despicable Me" and don't ge the joke. ) Here is what my circuit board looked like prior to soldering. Originally the lead of the reed switch was touching the solder point but was never actually soldered in place. After about two years or so the very weak "connection" failed completely.

Its nice when Nebraskans can help out other Nebraskans. East/West coast designers build the crap. Good hard working Chinese slave laborers build the crap. We Nebraskans buy the crap and figure out how to get and keep it working. Some day I'll 3D print my own weather station but it will probably be a while because Keeping my WeatherWise going should be practical for a long time.


Thanx again NO0C,

I hope you get the rain you need out west.

Foxpup