Weather Stations And Indigo

I use a Davis Vantage Vue with the WeatherlinkIP "dongle". This connects the console to an Ethernet connection. LWC then can read the station data from the Ethernet... avoiding the dreaded "serial cable made in 1984". Works well for me.

automaton,
What Mac software do you use on the back end for weather analysis? This looks like the setup I'm looking for. Also, any suggestions on where to buy the hardware?

Thanks!

I have a Davis Vantage Vue with the USB dongle, works fine on my MacBook Pro.

I use the the Mac weather software from Lightsoft http://www.lightsoft.co.uk/LWC/

Data is published here:
http://www.mountainearsfarm.com/LWCWeb/

I also pump the info into Indigo as well, works great.

I use LWC (Lightsoft Weather Center) to connect to the Davis station console over Ethernet. LWC has a CGI interface that can be polled by Indigo, so I have a set of Indigo variables that update every few minutes with the weather data.

I'm seeing a theme here with the Davis, the network adapter, and LWC. This may be my sign to go down that path.

I plan on a Davis unit not too far down the road. Currently I'm using an Oregon Scientific unit for it's indoor temp/humidity sensors with data going to WeatherTracker. I decided on WeatherTracker because of being able to track both OS and Davis units simultaneously.

WeatherTracker's been great obtaining data from multiple OS sensors but I could not comment on running it with Davis as I have yet to add that to the mix.

Can LWC read from multiple weather stations?

[jay (support)]

Can LWC read from multiple weather stations?

Nope - it can only do one weather station and two additional internet sources.

Anyone having an issue with their WMR200 losing it's connection to the Mac every
few days? Just started happening with mine. It would seem that something is timing out?
Works fine otherwise and a restart of Weathertracker restores the connection.

Haven't heard anything from Oregon Scientific yet.

Thanks,

Carl

Anyone having an issue with their WMR200 losing it's connection to the Mac every
few days? Just started happening with mine. It would seem that something is timing out?
Works fine otherwise and a restart of Weathertracker restores the connection.

Yes. Have been seeing Weathersnoop crashes, which are probably related.
Seems like a recent problem. Ran fine for months. Not exactly sure when it started, maybe within last 4 weeks?

Interesting. Mine ran for months as well before this new problem. I've contacted Oregon Scientific about it but still haven't heard anything.

Carl

I'll try to contact Weathersnoop, and let you know if there's any insight from that perspective. The forum over there is less active than this, but I saw similar problem..


UPDATE: The Weathersnoop developer got back to me quickly, asked for the Console crash logs, and replied that it is a crash he has seen rarely before and only with WMR200's. He's looking into a solution, but still looking for more info about it.

The AfterTen, WeatherTracker, support seems to have disappeared. Still having the disconnect error with my WMR200 most every night now
at the same time.

The log is showing this:

2011-07-31 00:00:00: Start WMR200Decoder.DataReceived
2011-07-31 00:00:00: End WMR200Decoder.DataReceived
2011-07-31 00:00:04: WIND (428:428) - [D3:10:24:00:1F:07:0B:09:0C:0E:30:01:00:20:AC:01:]
2011-07-31 00:00:04: Low Bat = False
DirectionType = 3
Direction = 202
Gust = 1.4 OR=False
Avg. = 1.9 OR=False
Chill. = NA

2011-07-31 00:00:04: Start WMR200Decoder.DataReceived
2011-07-31 00:02:58: End WMR200Decoder.DataReceived
2011-07-31 00:02:58: WXFTPUploadTimer Action
2011-07-31 00:02:58: Starting FTP Upload, see WeatherTrackerFTPLog
2011-07-31 00:02:58: Sending CWOP - Morningview
2011-07-31 00:02:59: DW6166>APRS,TCPIP*:@310600z4812.28N/11423.36W_202/004g003t068r000p000P000b08980h47.weathertracker2331.4.2
2011-07-31 00:02:59: Sending CWOP data to cwop.aprs.net:14580
2011-07-31 00:03:00: RECEIVED DATA ERROR! Resetting connection
2011-07-31 00:03:00: Received Disconnect call
2011-07-31 00:03:00: Disconnecting Macintosh WMR200 USB connection
2011-07-31 00:03:00: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 130000
2011-07-31 00:03:00: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 130000
2011-07-31 00:03:00: CWOP Send Morningview: Connected
2011-07-31 00:03:00: Sending CWOP Login Packet for Morningview
2011-07-31 00:03:01: Login successful, Sending CWOP Weather Packet for Morningview
2011-07-31 00:03:01: CWOP Weather data packet sent for Morningview, closing connection.
2011-07-31 00:03:03: Station did not respond to TERMINATE, closing physical connection
2011-07-31 00:03:03: Trying to reconnect to restart data flow
2011-07-31 00:03:03: Physically Connected to WMR200 type station, sending VOODOO
2011-07-31 00:03:04: VOODOO did its magic, send TERMINATE
2011-07-31 00:03:37: Sent START 10 time with no response=1
2011-07-31 00:03:37: Received Disconnect call
2011-07-31 00:03:37: Disconnecting Macintosh WMR200 USB connection
2011-07-31 00:05:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:05:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:10:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:10:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:15:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:15:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:20:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:20:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:25:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:25:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:30:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:30:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:30:10: WXFTPUploadTimer Action
2011-07-31 00:30:10: Starting FTP Upload, see WeatherTrackerFTPLog
2011-07-31 00:35:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:35:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:40:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:40:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:45:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:45:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:50:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:50:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:55:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 00:55:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 01:00:10: Action: Setting PWS Timer, Period = 300000
2011-07-31 01:00:10: Action: Setting WUG Timer, Period = 300000


Anyone else seeing this or have any idea what may be causing the terminate/disconnect?

Thanks,

Carl

Hey,

Been getting an error when attempting to execute my NOAA script.
I tried a complete reboot of the computer which got it working temporarily
but soon after I see these errors again. Odd that nothing I can think of has changed
that might have got this error started.

Weather NOAA GetXMLfile:URL Access Scripting got an error: AppleEvent timed out.(-1712)

I can access the weather site from my browser so I know it's up and running.
I'm running 10.5.8 and Indigo 4.1.17

The station I'm accessing is KGPI.

Any ideas?

Carl

[jay (support)]

That means that the URL Scripting Access application is timing out trying to get the file. It could be that it's having a problem or that it can't talk to NOAA for some reason. We've had to replace that call with a command line call to curl to get it working for Lion, which doesn't even provide that application any more. Send me an email (indigo DASH support AT perceptiveautomation DOT com) and I'll send you the updated script - it should work fine on Snow Leopard and Indigo 4. Just replace the old copy with the new one and restart the server.

[jay (support)]

Well, more bad news on the Mac software front. Lightsoft seems to have gone out of business. I won't be doing any work on the LWC IWS plugin and will actively be looking for alternatives.

Well, more bad news on the Mac software front. Lightsoft seems to have gone out of business. I won't be doing any work on the LWC IWS plugin and will actively be looking for alternatives.

If you already HAVE LWC like I do, the Author passed the user forum onto some of his beta testers at

http://www.macweather.net/

and left the latest beta and registration key on the forum. It runs fine on Lion and grabbing all the data (except heat index; Stu posted that to HTML, but not to Applescript, no Idea why) is just a matter of TELLing LWC to copy it to Applescript values and then TELLing Indigo to copy it to it's own variables; I've got a 20 line out of proc script that runs forever, updating once a minute. For the heat index, I data fit the NWC table and got a better fit than the one in Wikipedia and then integrated it with the chill factor to get the apparent temperature inside the LWC TELL as follows:

Code: Select all

               set myHI to ExternalTemp + 0.363445176 + 4.777114035 * ExternalRH + 6.87678E-4 * (ExternalTemp ^ 2) * ExternalRH + 2.74954E-4 * ExternalTemp * (ExternalRH ^ 2) - (0.011377535 * ExternalTemp + 8.50208E-4 * (ExternalTemp ^ 2) + 0.020716198 * (ExternalRH ^ 2) + 0.114037667 * ExternalTemp * ExternalRH)
               --If the temperature is 70 or greater, the Heat Index is the apparent temperature
               --below 69, the wind chill is the apparent temperature.
               if (ExternalTemp > 69) then
                  set myChillFactor to (round myHI * 4 rounding up) / 4
               else
                  set myChillFactor to (round WindChill * 4 rounding up) / 4
               end if


I use the round by quarter degree because when I round by tenths, I get 81.0999999999999991 and the like; but because of the internal number representations being binary fractions, the 0.25, .5, and .75 always round evenly.

And BTW, The guy who wrote LWC claims that he WILL be back once he finishes some unspecified medical treatment...and there is a very large user base pulling for him.