Personal Weather Station - Suggestions?

[dnw64]

I gotta look into this again.

I "inherited" a Davis Vantage 2 when I bought our current house. Got it going by replacing the battery. Battery didn't last long, turned out the capacitor was blown. Replaced the capacitor, less than a year later it's (the unit, not sure if it's the battery, capacitor, or what) dead again - not sure why right now, but it makes me want to just start from scratch.

 

[jcummins]

I'm in the exact same boat. What has stopped a up to this point cuz I'm seeing too many instances of people reporting problems with the sensor array communicating to the console not the Wi-Fi to the internet but to the console. From Amazon The weather station console features two levels of wireless connectivity. The sensor array connects to the console via RF (915 MHz), and the console connects to your router (2.4 GHz).

If I could get comfortable with what I've read about that RF wireless communication I'd buy one. Does anybody here have any feedback on that?

 

[ericm979]

I think that putting it on your roof is going to skew the temperature high. I mounted mine on a fence pole in the garden.

Our WS2902 does not seem to have a good range between the remote unit and the display. I had to move the display to the kitchen which is the closest part of the house to the garden. Maybe 40' away and only one wall. OTOH I've never had a problem with the display unit connecting to the WiFi network.

 

[jcummins]

I think that putting it on your roof is going to skew the temperature high. I mounted mine on a fence pole in the garden.

Our WS2902 does not seem to have a good range between the remote unit and the display. I had to move the display to the kitchen which is the closest part of the house to the garden. Maybe 40' away and only one wall. OTOH I've never had a problem with the display unit connecting to the WiFi network.

Yes what you described is an apparent weakness on an otherwise excellent... I think....weather station.

 

[dragoneggs]

I think that putting it on your roof is going to skew the temperature high. I mounted mine on a fence pole in the garden.

Our WS2902 does not seem to have a good range between the remote unit and the display. I had to move the display to the kitchen which is the closest part of the house to the garden. Maybe 40' away and only one wall. OTOH I've never had a problem with the display unit connecting to the WiFi network.

This is why I mounted it on the end of the roof and overhang to minimize temp issue. For me that little variation of temp is insignificant and you instead get accurate wind and precipitation readings. I think if mounted on the end of the house 4+ feet above the top, you shouldn't be getting much effect from the house temp unless you have zero insulation. In that case you got bigger issues.

 

[DieselBound]

I've got mine mounted off an eve of my pump house. It's only a few feet above the roof. Distance between sensor array and display console is about 40' away and there's 3 or 4 walls between. Never had an issue with WiFi. My understanding is that the earlier model had replaceable batteries whereas later ones do not. I'm currently needing to reset the sensor array as the wind reading, max gust, is stuck at 34.9mph: no idea why it needs to be reset (how it got into this mode), but that's what their support says needs to be done. I sometimes lose connection to my ISP modem, but it's got to do with power outage or such: it would be nice if the console knew to keep retrying to obtain IP (I suspect it might be a DHCP lease issue).

 

[oosik]

It's been almost two years since I installed my Davis Vantage Pro 2. It's working just great. However, I've given up on the software that reports data to any internet site. Somewhere between the Weather Cat 2 & the Mac Weather reporting software - I became lost.

The outside system is doing fine. Still up there on the 2" heavy duty galvanized pipe. It's mounted on the NW corner of my west side porch. Every once in a while - up on a ladder - pull all the pine needles out of the rain cup. That's it for maintenance/repairs.

 

[Ford850]

I mounted mine on a 10' rigid steel conduit, which is attached to a wood fence post. I used a lag screw gate hinge screwed into the wood post about a foot off the ground, screwed in almost all the way to the vertical stub on the hinge. Then set the conduit onto the hinge. Then used a conduit strap at the top of the wood post to hold the conduit upright. The first time I put it up I adjusted the lag (screwed in or out) and used a spacer behind the conduit at the strap, to get it plumb. Now when I need to get to the weather station for maintenance or to change batteries, I remove the strap and lift the conduit mast off the lower hinge/support and lay the whole thing down. It's worked great for years now. It's away from buildings and elevated so wind speed is more accurate. But the best part is I can work on it at ground level when needed. Plus I could locate it where I wanted to get a clear path to the indoor base station.