Newbie software engineer with some easy questions

[easyrider]

Hi everybody.
I'm hoping someone can provide some advice on usb weather stations.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/usb-touchscreen ... er+Station
Looks like a good offer presumably this will work with sandaysoft (think I saw a heads up on this forum somewhere) ?

What I want todo for the 3rd year project of my OU computing degree is weather (and also solar power) monitoring software.
I see that the maplin USB beater stations are wireless.
The data is stored a DAT file : is this on the PC (so the pc has to be switched on all the time to 'record' ) ?
Or is the data stored on the reciever?

[steve]

It does work with Cumulus, yes; it's a 'Fine Offset'. You don't need to keep the PC on all the time, data is held in the station and Cumulus downloads the data since the last time it ran, when it starts up.

The .dat file is only relevant to Easyweather; it's the equivalent of the Cumulus log files. But again, if you want to use Easyweather, you still don't need to keep the PC on all the time. Don't run EW and Cumulus at the same time.

[easyrider]

Does Cumulus itself build these local websites I see such as http://dmjsystems.co.uk/weather/sysstatus.htm

I wondering what opportunities exist for OU project work that have not already been done or are in the pipeline.

[steve]

Does Cumulus itself build these local websites I see such as http://dmjsystems.co.uk/weather/sysstatus.htm

That site is based on the standard Cumulus site, but is modified somewhat. The standard site looks more like mine (it has only minor modifications): http://sanday.org.uk/weather/

Some people are happy to use the standard pages, while many people develop their own, or use one of the sites developed by others. See the download page, and the various sections in the forum about these.

[KevinF]

Welcome Easyrider

This might interest you...cheaper, but basically the same:

http://www.clasohlson.com/uk/Weather-St ... r363242000

Regards Kevin

[easyrider]

Thanks kevinF : a fare bit cheaper.

I wonder if there is something similar for solar power and what opportunities exist to pair the weather data wnd the solar data ?
I suppose the solar and weather data could together give an indication of how effective or not the solar power was.

[water01]

That site is based on the standard Cumulus site, but is modified somewhat.

Thanks Steve, but it is still most of your code at heart!!

And Mark's of course

[AllyCat]

I wonder if there is something similar for solar power and what opportunities exist to pair the weather data wnd the solar data ?

Hi,

Fine Offset also manufacture the WH3080 which adds solar data (Lux and "UV") to the other weather data. It's available in the UK but AFAIK at a rather high price compared with the current Maplin and Clas Ohlson "offers".

Also, FO appear to have made a number of "mistakes" in the design of the 3080 (and 3081 without a RTC) so it's difficult to recommend. There are several (long) threads on this forum about "issues" with the 308x models.

Cheers, Alan.

[robynfali]

I certainly wouldn't recommend going for the 3080, after going through at least 3 of them, with various solar problems, charging problems, the final straw was the fact of the time setting, it picks a signal up from germany, so you HAVE to angle the transmitter toward the signal if you are any great distance from germany. This negates positioning the uv sensor southwards