What Weather Station Software Do You Use?

[czenzel]

I am curious what weather station software people use at Stormtrack and what some of their problems are with each of them.

I use Virtual Weather Station; however, I sometimes have problems were I have to reset the USB Davis VP2 to make it recommunicate.

 

[D. Hayes]

Weather Station Data Logger Beta Version 2.8.8.1

http://sourceforge.net/projects/wmrx00/

Fantastic program that considerably better than my Oregon Scientific "Weather OS" program. Best part is that it's free!

 

[Matt Sellers]

I bought Weatherlink with my VP2 - works quite well. The main issues occur when the Weatherlink will attempt to transfer data from the VP2 but for some reason will encounter 'too many errors' and will stop the transfer (until I see the problem and stop/restart the strip chart that I keep running.) Less often, it'll lose connection with the VP2 altogether, requiring a computer reboot. Either way, as long as the VP2 stays up (which it will, as long as the power doesn't go out for longer than 45 minutes at a time - thanks to a UPS), I'm not too worried about it.

 

[czenzel]

I bought Weatherlink with my VP2 - works quite well. The main issues occur when the Weatherlink will attempt to transfer data from the VP2 but for some reason will encounter 'too many errors' and will stop the transfer (until I see the problem and stop/restart the strip chart that I keep running.) Less often, it'll lose connection with the VP2 altogether, requiring a computer reboot. Either way, as long as the VP2 stays up (which it will, as long as the power doesn't go out for longer than 45 minutes at a time - thanks to a UPS), I'm not too worried about it.

Sounds similar to Virtual Weather Station with transfer problems. After researching, I created a script to reset the Davis chip every night around 2:30 AM to try and prevent me from rebooting the whole computer. It seemed after a week of continued downloads it would crash.

Here is a copy of the script in case anybody is interested:

You might need to find the proper device IDs. I don't know if their the same on every WeatherLink USB.

ResetDavis.bat

@echo OFF
echo Turning off USBXpress (Davis)
devcon disable "@USB\VID_10C4&PID_EA61\1235583156"
echo Turning on USBXpress (Davis)
devcon enable "@USB\VID_10C4&PID_EA61\1235583156"
echo Done!

I downloaded the devcon application from Microsoft's Support Center. I think it is also apart of the Device SDK, but it should be easily found in the KB Center.

It has seemed to be working for me. I haven't had to reboot the machine for a couple of weeks now.

I also found on VWS' web site (under the Beta section of their Wiki) that the "Retrive High/Lows each Hour" crashes with the VP2 and causes Communication Errors. I turned that feature off under the WeatherLink Preferences.

Thanks,
Christopher Zenzel

Edit: Also this script can be run while VWS is running, as the script only temporarly disables the USB chip.