Cumulus Support

Hi Steve,

I'm using version 1074 build 1069. I've noticed that the hours of sun are carried over into the next day in the monthly log files. I'm using a five minute interval, so at 00:05 hours, the monthly log file has the previous day's sun hours. I just went back through my data and it appears as though it related to the Blake-Larsen sunrecorder. I had a day or two when I did not use the B-L sunrecorrder
and the log file did not have the carry over for that day. I'm not sure if this a Cumulus issue or if I should mention it up to Ole.

from the May log

22/05/13,23:55,53.9,96,52.8,1.0,3.0,28,0.00,0.24,29.904,9.12,74.0,44,1.0,53.9,53.9,0.0,0,0.069,11.321,54.2,0,3.4,28,0.00,0.24
23/05/13,00:00,53.9,96,52.8,1.0,3.0,29,0.00,0.00,29.903,9.12,73.9,44,0.0,53.9,53.9,0.0,0,0.068,11.320,54.2,0,3.4,28,0.00,0.00
23/05/13,00:05,53.9,96,52.8,1.0,2.0,28,0.00,0.00,29.901,9.12,73.9,44,0.0,53.9,53.9,0.0,0,0.000,11.320,54.2,0,3.4,28,0.00,0.00

Thank you,

Kerry

Cumulus reads the SRsunshine.dat file once a minute, and gets the sunshine hours for today so far from it. It resets the value to zero at midnight, but it will then read the SRsunshine.dat file again to get the latest figure, and you would expect that the figure in the file was also reset at that time. I think that either the code which writes the file isn't resetting the figure, or perhaps for some reason the file isn't getting updated.

You can check that Cumulus is resetting the value by looking in the diags file at around that time. But even if it wasn't doing the reset, it should get reset anyway by virtue of the value in the file being reset. Unless there was a problem reading the file, which would also get logged to the diags file.

Hi Steve,

Diags file excerpt below.

5/23/2013 00:00:00.500 : Midnight rain reset, count = 9.12 time = 5/23/2013
5/23/2013 00:00:00.562 : === Day reset, today = 23
5/23/2013 00:00:00.562 : === Day reset for 5/22/2013
5/23/2013 00:00:01.172 : Raintotal = 9.11999988555908 Raindaystart = 8.88000011444092
5/23/2013 00:00:01.172 : Rainyesterday (calibrated) set to 0.239999771118164
5/23/2013 00:00:01.172 : RainDayThreshold = 0.00899999961256981
5/23/2013 00:00:01.172 : rdt1000=9 ry1000=240
5/23/2013 00:00:01.172 : Yesterday was a rain day
5/23/2013 00:00:01.172 : Consecutive rain days = 1
5/23/2013 00:00:01.172 : Raindaystart set to 9.11999988555908
5/23/2013 00:00:01.234 : StartofdayET set to 11.3199996948242
5/23/2013 00:00:01.734 : Writing today.ini, LastUpdateTime = 5/22/2013 11:55:00 PM raindaystart = 9.11999988555908 rain counter = 9.11999988555908
5/23/2013 00:00:01.765 : Write yesterday file: Date = 5/23/2013
5/23/2013 00:00:02.203 : Creating NOAA monthly report for month 05 year 2013
5/23/2013 00:00:04.656 : Saving monthly report as C:\Cumulus\Reports\NOAAMO0513.txt
5/23/2013 00:00:04.718 : Creating NOAA yearly report for year 2013
5/23/2013 00:00:10.047 : Saving yearly report as C:\Cumulus\Reports\NOAAYR2013.txt
5/23/2013 00:00:10.828 : Creating backup folder C:\Cumulus\backup\daily\20130523000000\
5/23/2013 00:00:11.140 : === Day reset complete
5/23/2013 00:00:11.140 : Now recording data for day=23 month=5 year=2013
5/23/2013 00:00:11.140 : Reset sunshine hours, yesterday = 3.4
5/23/2013 00:00:11.140 : Write yesterday file: Date = 5/23/2013

Here's where it reset the sunshine hours:

tobyspond wrote:5/23/2013 00:00:11.140 : Reset sunshine hours, yesterday = 3.4

There are no errors logged for reading the file, so I think that the problem must be either that the sun recorder software isn't resetting the value, or isn't updating the file. Does the count continue to increase from 3.4 when the sun comes up, or does it at some point get reset?

The sun hours do get reset at the next interval, 00:10. It only affects me when I am querying the monthly log, but I can work/query around it.

The sun recorder program shuts itself down at midnight to allow for updates, backups, etc. The user can set the restart interval in five minute increments. I'll contact Ole since it appears that this is not a Cumulus issue.

Thanks for all your time and help,

Kerry

Just an update....

I contacted Ole and he confirmed that it is the sun recorder program itself that is not updating the Cumulus monthly log file after the automatic shut down and restart. B-L users can expect a new version of the software in the near future.

Kerry