Eugene

What good is your weather station data if you need a degree in computer science to see it.

Automatic upload to WeatherUnderground has been a standard feature of Dyacon MS-100 weather stations from the beginning. Now, we add two new ways to get your full data set, email and FTP.

“Ah, but what special accessories or add-on modules do I need?”

None. The capability is built into MS-100 weather station control modules. No additional boxes to buy and no additional wiring. The feature uses the integrated cell phone of the MS-130, MS-140, and MS-150 weather stations.

“Do I have to pay more for the service?”

No. Other than a few more bytes of data traffic, there is no additional cost, no software license, server access fees, and no development tools to buy. It’s your weather station, your data, we’d like you to keep it that way.

Details

The data log can be programmed to transmit daily, weekly, or monthly. The log is transmitted as a CSV file and is uploaded directly to the FTP server or attached to an email. Each mode (email and FTP) is enabled separately.

The email address, server, and password are programmed through the LCD interface on the Dyacon control module (data logger), CM-1. The Dyacon Control Module Utility, which is free, may also be used for configuring the settings.

The phone module must be provisioned with an appropriate data plan. A dedicated IP address is NOT required. Low-cost machine-to-machine data plans are available from Dyacon or your international distributor.

Please give us a call if you have any questions.

Eugene

A friend came to me with a curious problem regarding the research weather stations he maintains. The Geonor rain gauges were experiencing glitches. Some of his stations exhibited only occasional problems, and others were failing almost daily.

In the plot below, the rain gauge output is in blue. It should be a steady, increasing line representing the weight of the accumulated precipitation. The green line is the battery voltage. In this case, when the sun would hit the solar panels each day, the solar charge controller turned on and the rain gauge stopped working.

I found that the systems he maintains use a Morningstar Sunsaver solar charge controller. These solar charge controllers use a PWM output to charge the battery. This means that rather than just regulating the voltage and current to the battery, the controllers switch the charge voltage on and off very fast. This type of electrical signal can cause electrical noise and interfere with other devices on the circuit. Depending on the lengths of wires to the batteries and the susceptibility of other systems, the noise may become significant.

The Solution

After some testing, it was demonstrated that the PWM power from the solar charge controller was interfering with the vibrating wire signal adapter of the Geonor rain gauge. Adding a 12 VDC linear regulator to the circuit resolved the problem.

We quickly created a new product to address this problem. The regulator is now available as Dyacon RLP‑2W^TM.

With an input range of 12.5 V to 36 V, RLP‑2W is also suitable for industrial automation applications. The On/Off control input of RLP‑2W allows for power optimization using a digital signal to control the regulator output.

Let us know if you have a specific problem with your data acquisition system. We’d love to see if we could help.

Eugene

In part one of Smart Sensor Benefits I mentioned some advantages that digital sensors have when integrating them with data acquisition devices. They allow for easy integration by providing “ready-to-use” measurement data. The sensors can also provide a richer data set than can be achieved with an analog sensor. In the case of Dyacon WSD wind sensors, current and averaged wind parameters are available.

Now With Gust!

Utilizing the smart sensor processor, Dyacon can expand the functionality of WSD and TPH sensors. As an example, WSD-1 now calculates gust in addition to current measurements, 2 minute average, and 10 minute average.

That is much easier to work with than a 0 V to 5 V output!

How Far Will You Go?

Dyacon WSD-1 and TPH-1 sensors use Modbus RS-485. A recent article in an engineering trade journal, Design World, touted the advantages of RS-485. One of the valuable benefits is the ability to transmit over long cable lengths, 1500 ft to 6000 ft (450 m to 1830 m). These are rough values and depend on the data rate, cable type, and electrical environment.

The data rate on Dyacon Modbus sensors, WSD-1 and TPH-1, is selectable from 1200 bps up to 38400 bps. This feature allows users to optimize the data rate for the specific application, balancing power usage with connection reliability over long cable runs.

What Flavor Would You Like?

Dyacon has been building customized electronic products for integrators for many years. Systems often need to be optimized for particular applications in order to provide the necessary functional benefits or market differentiation. If you have a special need that requires a particular data set or protocol, give us a call. We would be happy to work with you to emulate another device, adapt measurement algorithms, or provide you with a unique solution for your application whether industrial automation, wind power survey, or environmental data acquisition.

Eugene

While sustained winds are of interest, it is the wind gusts that generally cause damage . . . at least for those outside of tornado alley or on hurricane coast.

How do you measure a gust? With a Dyacon wind sensor, of course.

The latest firmware for Dyacon WSD‑1 now gives users more measurement parameters than other wind sensors on the market.

• Current wind speed
• Current wind direction
• 2 minute average wind speed
• 2 minute average wind direction
• 10 minute average wind speed
• 10 minute average wind direction
• and . . . gust

You get it all for the same price and the same operating current, <2 mA at 12 VDC. Now that’s a bargain! (Sorry, no free knife sets.)

Keep in mind that not all increases in wind speed represent a gust. Where other stations simply look for the maximum wind speed over a period of time, we implement a more technical definition. To meet the definition of a gust, we look for increases in wind speed of at least 10 knots (11.5 mph, or 5.1 m/s) above the 2 minute average. The gust value is retained for 10 minutes and replaced if a higher value occurs.
The sudden impact of a rapid change in wind is what often causes damage. After about 3 seconds, the structures are engulfed, and the pressure differential is reduced.

When it occurs, you’ll see this new value populated on my weather station at weatherunderground.com.

Eugene

*NOTE: This blog post is out of date. Some information may no longer be relevant.*

Many users would like to add weather conditions to their website. Good news! There’s no need to call the web developer and launch into weeks’ worth of work. Instead, Weather Underground has some great “sticker” options, where you can just copy and paste a little code snippet to add it to your blog or website.

Where would this be useful? Some applications include, but certainly aren’t limited to, hotels, outdoor water parks, boat rentals/marinas, golf courses, public libraries, and road condition sites. A resort in Hawaii would do well to brag about their temperate conditions online while we in the northern hemisphere are prying our icy hands off snow shovels.

Dyacon Weather Stations upload directly to Weather Underground. The site from my backyard is below. When you create your Weather Underground account, the “Get Weather Sticker” options will become available to you.

Oh, you want metric? No problem. Simply paste in a different snippet.

Not big enough? How about the following?

And it’s all done without an application engineer’s writing code for a black box data logger, add-on modules, or additional web servers . . . and without any extra fees. The developers at Weather Underground are my new friends. They might even get a Christmas card from me this year.

Eugene