Well That Didn't Help

 A couple of days after replacing the "Super Capacitor", the temperature and humidity readings are still dropping out intermittently.  Mostly at night, but this morning they stopped for an hour or two after sunrise, though I think it was mostly overcast.

So I wondered if the ISS battery was really OK.  Weewx reports "signal quality" of the ISS and actually graphs it, and I wasn't seeing any issues.  It also reports a "Battery Status" in real time (at the 2.5 sec update rate, though web page only refreshed every 5 minutes.  It normally reports just as "OK".  I assume if there is an issue, it would report "Not OK" or something similar.

Then today I spent some time trying to figure how to know if the Battery Status ever was not OK, like in the middle of the night.  I didn't think so, but wanted to know. I search through some logs, but didn't see any battery issues.  Then I did some searching in the Weewx Google Groups pages, and eventually saw that one could make Weewx create an alarm send an email if battery was ever low, or not OK.

That was not quite so easy.  It took me several hours to get it working, but I believe it will now send me an email if the ISS battery level drops below OK.

One other bit of information that really should answer the question, is that it appears wind speed and direction is still being reported.  A least it was yesterday.  Today shows no wind speed, but maybe it is just calm, or very low.  I don't think the anemometer works great below 5 mph.

Then tonight, just after dark temp and humidity have stopped reporting.  It is looking like maybe it is just a temp/humidity sensor issue.  Looking on line, I see some people say they have to replace them every 3 or 4 years.  I'm at 15, so maybe I'm lucky?

The Vantage Pro 2 is supposed to be one of the best personal weather stations.  I have had quite a few issues with mine, and it looks like I will need to spend some more to keep it running.  The Temp/Humidity sensor is $60.  Parts to replace anemometer bearings are not available for my vintage unit, so a whole new one is $184 as of today.  A complete weather station from Ambient that has similar features is less than $200.  The vantage Pro 2 updates readings more often, and it has a better wireless transmitter.  But it is not a bulletproof station.  It needs regular upkeep and parts will fail.  Another option is to buy a slightly lower cost Vantage Vue ISS only.  My console will work with it.  It's around $300.

A different station will mean doing some updating to make it work with Weewx.  Maybe I could sell the Vantage Pro 2 console and logger/pc interface.

Maybe I'll just buy the sensor and hope everything else lasts a few more years.

Integrated Sensor Module Issues

The last few nights the outdoor sensors stopped responding in the middle of the night.  They would begin sending data again a while after sunrise.  I had this problem before, maybe 2012-2014, not sure of date, where I replaced the "super capacitor", which helps maintain power during the night.

The battery reads over 3 V, so battery is not likely the problem.  Fortunately I had a spare capacitor from the last time I ordered one, and installed it today.  Hopefully that is the fix, otherwise maybe the solar cell is bad.

I don't think I want to put too much money into another Davis unit.  Price has soared and I haven't exactly had good reliability with it.  The anemometer may need new bearings as well.

I might opt for one of the Ambient systems at this point.  Maybe I could sell the Davis console and datalogger.

Various Issues Popping Up Again

 For some reason the Raspberry-Pi stopped working last night.  It had power and was connected up, but I had nothing on the monitor, and could not connect remotely.  I had no choice but to hard power-down.  It came back up fine, and weewx started running, but after one update, it was no longer updating the wx data.  After trying many things, I had to to a memory dump, then clear memory on the Vantage logger.  Luckily these tools are built into weewx along with a good troubleshooting guide, otherwise I'd be still floundering.

One issue I have had with this Pi, is the HDMI connector.  I don't know if it is the cable, or the connector, but the connection is intermittent.  This seems to only affect the monitor, so I don't think it is related.  But if any of the other USB connectors were intermittent, it could be.

This is similar to the problems I was having a couple of years ago with my previous Raspberry-Pi.  I wasn't sure if the Raspberry-Pi (memory card) was part of the problem, but I was due for a refresh of everything anyway.  It did give me two years of no problems.  I'm hoping this isn't a recurring trend.

711 Days without Interuption

Well the streak had to end sometime.  It was not a failure of the hardware or software, just a failure on my part .  I accidently killed power to the Raspberry Pi,  But it gave me the opportunity to investigate possibly adding an extension in Weewx.  Ultimately it didn't work out, but I've wanted to try it for a long time but didn't want to shut it down.

But it back up and running, but I'll probably be quicker to do updates or make changes without trying to break any uptime records.

Weewx and Website Running Over 1 Year w/o Interruption

 

In the past, while running Wview or Weewx, I have had times where the station has run for a few months before something would happen, like a power blip or outage.  I've had the Davis console fail, batteries and capacitors in the integrated sensor unit fail, USB hubs, fail, serial port glitches, memory problems on the Raspberry-Pi, etc.  But after a new Raspberry-Pi in Dec 2020, and a UPS last February 2021, the Raspberry-Pi and Weewx have been running over a year without a restart.  I have had connection to the internet fail a few times, but the system keeps on recording data and updates when it is restored.

The UPS has been the biggest improvement.  I'd guess we have had 3 or 4 power outages in the last year.  Most were short, one was a couple of hours.  But it is nice to not have to connect up to the Pi and start everything up again for every power glitch.

I have a couple of things I'd like to do on the Pi, but almost don't want to shut it down and break this streak.

Inside Humidity

One of my hobbies is playing guitar.  I have several, both electric and acoustic.  Humidity plays havoc with the wood, especially the neck of a guitar, affecting the tuning and playability.  The seasonal changes in humidity is when it is most noticeable.  We have air conditioning, and I have reduced the number of times that we keep windows open in the summer, as I felt going back and forth was not great for the guitars.  Last winter, after some very cold dry weather when the indoor humidity was in the low 30% range, I finally had a humidifier added to my hot-air furnace.

The humidifier has a rough adjustment, but I have been depending on my Davis Vantage Pro II console for the indoor humidity.  Weewx, by default, does not include indoor humidity in it's standard report (Seasons).  It does include indoor temperature.  I guess it is because not all weather stations include an indoor humidity measurement.  But I wanted the ability to track the indoor humidity so I can adjust the humidifier to ensure it is keeping the house in the proper range.

So today I delved into trying to figure out how to include Indoor Humidity in the Weewx generated web pages.  It wasn't particularly difficult if I don't include the couple of hours to figure out how to do it.  The actual changes took maybe 15 minutes.  I was surprised that there wasn't specific instructions on how to do this.  I searched the User Guide, Customization guide, and User Forums.  Eventually I narrowed in on a solution, but it wasn't easy.  Essentially it required changes to the skin.conf and index.html.tmpl in order to display the Indoor Humidity.  At least those changes didn't require a Weewx restart, and I am still going on 335+ days without a restart.

One of my issues is that I'm not a Linux expert or super user.  My Raspberry Pi has been running for 335 days, and that is how long it has been since I actually typed any commands in Linux.  So I have to re-learn everything when it has been that long.

It would be nice if Weewx had options in a config file for what to display by default.  There are specific options for Vantage stations, why not make a switch?  Or at least semi-detailed instructions on how to add the Indoor Humidity.

Anyway, it is working now, and since the data has been recorded all along, I can see the history of the indoor humidity for a year, and see the difference it made when my humidifier was installed.

Station Up for 200 Days

Just noticed on my website that the wx station has been running 200 days straight without a hitch.  I haven't kept track, but pretty sure this is a record for me.  The UPS has helped, though I'm not sure we've lost power, but the new Raspberry-Pi and SW probably has helped as well.  I also noticed the battery in the sensor unit was low, so I replaced that before it caused an issue.  Anyway, happy to have this working well.