Weather Monitoring on a 486 PC! 1990s Davis Weather Station
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Subgunman
A friend of mine had one of these set up at his home. He set up the outdoor parts on his antenna tower below his antennas ( he was a Ham, now a SK. He took a lightning hit that took out his rig and damaged the temp/ humidity sensor. The rest of the equipment survived. He bought a new sensor pack and continued with his work. I wound up fixing the sensor, took out an IC chip on the PC board. Worked fine but he gave it to me. Never did anything with it.
You might not need the radiant housing for the temp sensor. One might try replacing the thermistor used in it. Some of these would go off with time and age. From what I remember Davis used standard off the shelf components back in the day.
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A friend of mine had one of these set up at his home. He set up the outdoor parts on his antenna tower below his antennas ( he was a Ham, now a SK. He took a lightning hit that took out his rig and damaged the temp/ humidity sensor. The rest of the equipment survived. He bought a new sensor pack and continued with his work. I wound up fixing the sensor, took out an IC chip on the PC board. Worked fine but he gave it to me. Never did anything with it.
You might not need the radiant housing for the temp sensor. One might try replacing the thermistor used in it. Some of these would go off with time and age. From what I remember Davis used standard off the shelf components back in the day.
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Solarbird
I've never used the Davis kits, but we have an extensive ambientweather system set up here (weather station kit but also a fleet of extra temperature and humidity sensors) for which I've been writing HVAC software. I intend to release the software as open source eventually.
(Basically, it's ventilation control and active/passive air-exchange cooling in the summer, and it's worked almost shockingly well. Much better than I expected, in fact. Dramatically better temperatures and conditions inside, and I think the last month with our partial-house AC the electric usage dropped 17% year over year to, again, _much_ better results. So I'm pretty enthusiastic about it at the moment)
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I've never used the Davis kits, but we have an extensive ambientweather system set up here (weather station kit but also a fleet of extra temperature and humidity sensors) for which I've been writing HVAC software. I intend to release the software as open source eventually.
(Basically, it's ventilation control and active/passive air-exchange cooling in the summer, and it's worked almost shockingly well. Much better than I expected, in fact. Dramatically better temperatures and conditions inside, and I think the last month with our partial-house AC the electric usage dropped 17% year over year to, again, _much_ better results. So I'm pretty enthusiastic about it at the moment)
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Wild
I would love to see you review one of those telescopes that had a serial cable to hook up to a computer with software to point it at specific constellations or stellar objects with their catalog numbers. I know they make modern and very expensive ones now, but I remember there being much simpler and affordable ones when I was a kid. Affordable if you had rich parents or ones who thought that was a worthwhile investment in their child's curiosity anyway, mine were neither. I had a look at them recently again after being reminded and couldn't believe how expensive they are now, if my kid asked for one I'd tell em -hell no- too -
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I would love to see you review one of those telescopes that had a serial cable to hook up to a computer with software to point it at specific constellations or stellar objects with their catalog numbers. I know they make modern and very expensive ones now, but I remember there being much simpler and affordable ones when I was a kid. Affordable if you had rich parents or ones who thought that was a worthwhile investment in their child's curiosity anyway, mine were neither. I had a look at them recently again after being reminded and couldn't believe how expensive they are now, if my kid asked for one I'd tell em -hell no- too -
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Dave
Oh dear, this takes me back - I had to babysit one of these running on the top of an architecture department in an old job. We had it hooked up to an NT 3. 5 server periodically downloading the data, doing some clean up on it, and converting the charts into a website for one of the academics. It worked okay - from an IT perspective - till, as you discovered, the actual weather monitoring equipment was bargain basement garbage. We just gave up and brought the data from the Met Office in the end.
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Oh dear, this takes me back - I had to babysit one of these running on the top of an architecture department in an old job. We had it hooked up to an NT 3. 5 server periodically downloading the data, doing some clean up on it, and converting the charts into a website for one of the academics. It worked okay - from an IT perspective - till, as you discovered, the actual weather monitoring equipment was bargain basement garbage. We just gave up and brought the data from the Met Office in the end.
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Lewis
Have been using a Davis Vantage Pro 2 with additional solar and UV sensors for the last 12 years for fun with only ever one sensor failing in this time. The data's been uploading to Weather Underground all this time too which allows you to see the live conditions and history in graphs, most recently through a Raspberry Pi. I used various other brands before this one and none of them were as accurate or reliable as my Davis!
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Have been using a Davis Vantage Pro 2 with additional solar and UV sensors for the last 12 years for fun with only ever one sensor failing in this time. The data's been uploading to Weather Underground all this time too which allows you to see the live conditions and history in graphs, most recently through a Raspberry Pi. I used various other brands before this one and none of them were as accurate or reliable as my Davis!
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MrRom92DAW
There is something about the aesthetic on that box art- I dunno what it is, wild colors in scribbly crayons? Colored pencils? Is there a name for this? It just SCREAMS 1992-1997 to me. I don-t know why. Just seems like something I-ve subconsciously seen a million times in that time period. It doesn-t inherently look -old- but something about it immediately strikes me as nostalgic- and I like it
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There is something about the aesthetic on that box art- I dunno what it is, wild colors in scribbly crayons? Colored pencils? Is there a name for this? It just SCREAMS 1992-1997 to me. I don-t know why. Just seems like something I-ve subconsciously seen a million times in that time period. It doesn-t inherently look -old- but something about it immediately strikes me as nostalgic- and I like it
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Cam365
I had a davis pro vantage weather statiion from 2005, it used a serial. to usb with emulator and it used weatherlink. Good to see weatherlink graphs havnt changed much since the 90s. It connected to a display unit via radio link. I used weatherlink to down load the infor from the display unit via the serial. to usb after selected com port. Seriously weatherlink graphs havt changed at all.
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I had a davis pro vantage weather statiion from 2005, it used a serial. to usb with emulator and it used weatherlink. Good to see weatherlink graphs havnt changed much since the 90s. It connected to a display unit via radio link. I used weatherlink to down load the infor from the display unit via the serial. to usb after selected com port. Seriously weatherlink graphs havt changed at all.
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Brian
I have a La Crosse V50 weather station I received as a gift. The kit monitors wind, temp, barometer, humidity. It has a nice LCD real-time display, and keeps high and low values for the past year. The remote sensor is wireless and has a small solar panel. It has been up and running for about 18 months. I do wish it had long term data logging like the one in your video.
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I have a La Crosse V50 weather station I received as a gift. The kit monitors wind, temp, barometer, humidity. It has a nice LCD real-time display, and keeps high and low values for the past year. The remote sensor is wireless and has a small solar panel. It has been up and running for about 18 months. I do wish it had long term data logging like the one in your video.
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Diamond31325
I actually own and operate a Davis 2 weather station with upgraded software
on CD. Had to change the original temperature sensor. It's connected to a
windows XP PC which is just for gathering weather data and nothing else.
Station is very accurate about 1 or 2 degrees from the official weather station
at the Airport.
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I actually own and operate a Davis 2 weather station with upgraded software
on CD. Had to change the original temperature sensor. It's connected to a
windows XP PC which is just for gathering weather data and nothing else.
Station is very accurate about 1 or 2 degrees from the official weather station
at the Airport.
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Wrang15
I had the same system. But a lighting strike killed the data cable. and pc. now i have the usb version. but the hardware still runs fine 20 years later. Where i live now. no phone line no DSL. and its the only isp around. no cell coverage and the government owns the land to the south. so no clear sky for a sat system.
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I had the same system. But a lighting strike killed the data cable. and pc. now i have the usb version. but the hardware still runs fine 20 years later. Where i live now. no phone line no DSL. and its the only isp around. no cell coverage and the government owns the land to the south. so no clear sky for a sat system.
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