VP2 Archive interval

[kangooman]

Hi all

My first post on here, and I must say I am very impressed with all the info that I have found.

I have just purchased a Davis VP2 from a company who's on this forum, (not sure if I am allowed to advertise this company so I wont say until admin say its ok) and was wondering what you guys recommend to set the archive interval at.
I have loads of free space on my hard drive (like 430GB) so thats not a issue.
I've set mine at 5 mins.
Any recommendations would be most helpful.

Thanks
Richard

[steve]

I use 5 minutes too.

I've no problem with anyone mentioning or recommending Prodata here; John is very knowledgeable and a welcome contributor to the forum.

[kangooman]

Thanks Steve for a quick reply

You must be able to mind read

Yes its Prodata I purchased my station from, I found them very helpful and a very quick service, They are very highly recommended.

Cheers
Richard

[mcrossley]

I've settled on 5 minutes as well.

[tobyspond]

Welcome Richard,

I'm another 5 minute interval user (Davis VP2). That interval meets my needs.

Kerry

[Gordon-Loomberah]

1 minute logging here, the files aren't that big that I'd need to think about a longer interval.
Data logging of my off grid Lithium battery, solar and wind power system however, is at 1 second intervals- I like to be able to see exactly what is going on- things change a lot faster than the weather

[steve]

1 minute logging here, the files aren't that big that I'd need to think about a longer interval.

The main thing that stops me using a 1-minute interval is the possibility that the power might be off here for more than 42 hours. It hasn't happened yet, but we have been off for more than 24 hours on one occasion.

[RayProudfoot]

5 minute here too. I also bought my VP2 from ProData and was very impressed with the help John gave me before I took the plunge. It's quite an outlay of course for us Brits. Pity we can't get the refurb offer from Davis. I'd even be willing to pay £100 instead of $100.

[William Grimsley]

Even though I use a Davis Vantage Vue weather station, I also have my archive interval set to 5 minutes, too!

[andrew_sinclair]

Hello,

Please excuse what might be a dumb question but by the term "Archive Interval" do you mean the interval between successive transferring of information from the VP2 console to the PC?

Does this interval related directly to the "Data Log Interval" on the "Station Settings" screen in Cumulus?

I have them both set to 5 minutes on the advice of the contextual help screen related to the "Station Settings" screen supported by this thread. The logic being that each time Cumulus take a 'cut' of the data, the data will have been refreshed from the VP2 console since the last 'cut' was taken.

I assumed that if the "Data Log Interval" is < twice the "Archive Interval" there is a risk the same 'cut' of data from the VP2 console will be added to the Cumulus data log which I want to avoid.

Regards

Andrew

[Ashley-vp]

Hello there. I am also a Vue user and have selected 5 minutes as the archive interval.

Currently thinking of upgrading to the VP2. It is a pity that the UK prices are so much more than the US prices. It would be great if the frequency used was the same in both countries!!!!! Then no problem in getting cheaper versions.

Ash

[Touchtone]

Hello,

Please excuse what might be a dumb question but by the term "Archive Interval" do you mean the interval between successive transferring of information from the VP2 console to the PC?

Does this interval related directly to the "Data Log Interval" on the "Station Settings" screen in Cumulus?

I have them both set to 5 minutes on the advice of the contextual help screen related to the "Station Settings" screen supported by this thread. The logic being that each time Cumulus take a 'cut' of the data, the data will have been refreshed from the VP2 console since the last 'cut' was taken.

I assumed that if the "Data Log Interval" is < twice the "Archive Interval" there is a risk the same 'cut' of data from the VP2 console will be added to the Cumulus data log which I want to avoid
Andrew

The archive interval is the amount of time between each download from the console to the data logger. This setting is independent of what setting you are using for Cumulus, but they should be set to the same interval for best results.
Whether the PC is running or not does not affect this archive interval setting.
When Cumulus is running in real time mode it is updated directly from the console every few seconds, but data is also stored in the data logger at each archive interval, so there is a backup in the event of a failure.
Short archive intervals are more likely to catch sudden short term weather events but of course do reduce the the length of time available for logging new data before it starts to overwrite the old data.

[andrew_sinclair]

Hello Touchtone,

Thanks for your response, it makes more sense now. I can see in the bottom right hand side of the cumulus screen the following display...



This changes every few seconds so I assume this is Cumulus reading directly from the VP2 console. As a separate process the VP2 console is 'archiving' data into the logger.

I read on the Davis documentation that with the archive interval set to 5 minutes the logger has the capacity to store 8 days worth of data, so the PC in the system could be powered down for 8 days and restarted and the Cumulus software would download the missing data from the logger thus leaving no data gaps.

I had been confusing the processes for capturing the data from the sensors and displaying it on the console and transferring it to Cumulus to display, the realtime process you mention and the process of archiving by both by the console (to the data logger) and by Cumulus to the data file.

I think I understand it now, many thanks once again.

Andrew