I have just added a hobby-board solar sensor to my 1-Wire network. I have pluged it into one of the HUB ports. Now some times it gets the data and sometimes it dosent get the information. Can anyone shed some light as to what could be happening?
If I plug it in serial into the other sensors, it tends to get data for the majority of the time. But to do that I will have to pull my stevenson screen apart again.
i dont have a hub,and its been a long time since I had one…
i.e some of the sensors i have supported are post hub support…
you really should be able to run the whole network without the need for a hub…
see jeeps thread, about the 1 wire…
I have taken the solar sensor off the hub and now put it in front of the bub in between the pressure sensor and the hub.
If runs fine for quite a while when I put it anywhere along the main wire (IE On on the HUB). Every now and again I get the humidity sensor peaking at 100%. it gradually, steeply, climbs to it and stays there. As soon as I unplug the solar sensor or do a reset of the system, all the readings go back to normal.
Not too sure why this might be happening.
If I have the solar sensor in the shade, I do get readings from it. If I put the sensor in full sunlight, the sensor stops responding.
I have been talking to Eric from hobby-boards and he’s not too sure why its doing it and suggested to post here…
Has anyone had this type of problem and if so what have they done to counteract it?
Oh yes indeedy - been down this path. The sensor very easily suffers from overload. Place an opaque filter of some sort over it. I cut a plastic (NZ) milk bottle in half and placed that over my sensor glass dome that I built. Its temporary but it works great! John (ZL2TS) here on the forums has some real filters (I will come round and get it off you honest John
yes,thats it, you need to do exactly that 
I did see that in another post and I have messaged John about that. But as yet I haven’t heard from him. Do you have a picture of what you have done with the plastic cap? I have seen something like it somewhere else, but the way they had done it made it look as though no light was going to get through.
Also does anyone know what the max voltage should be set to with this unit?
have a look at what the raw voltage is reported in the solar setup in wd
when in bright sunlight at noon
and set the max voltage to that
ok, so what is the average that people have their solar sensors with a cap on it. Once I put my can on the sensor went right down to 42mV which aint all that much.
What are others getting?
was that in bright sunlight?
That was in rather bright sun light. It was however at around 3.30pm
There is something that I don’t totally understand. It is 7.00pm and its 42% solar outside and there are no clouds in the sky. I have cap on the solar sensor, but i think thats irrelevant for this. I have been watching the forecast icon and I can’t figure out why its saying what its saying. In the morning its saying that its overcast, as the sun gets brighter the icon changes and eventualy gets to the relay hot icon, and then goes the other way around.
WD screen
Current Outside
Solar Setup
I just got my solar sensor installed today. John kindly offered to send me one of his spare lenses, but to be able to use the sensor until it gets here I just took a piece of clear plastic and scruffed it up a bit with some 800 grit sandpaper. It works, but I never thought to check voltage when it was at 100% until late in the day when the light level was going down. I’ll check voltage tomorrow at mid day to see what I’m getting. I also noticed I’m getting 100% spikes with my 8540. But they are a quick momentary jump to 100%, then back down to the actual reading, not a long slope like you seem to be getting. Since I use the 8540 for inside humidity, I’ve not been too concerned with it, I just turned off the inside hum on the graph
Jeep,
You might find this site http://www.srrb.noaa.gov/highlights/sunrise/sunrise.html interesting for calculating your Sunrise / Sunset and Solar Noon. I have just worked out mine and I now know i need to take my measurement at 13:13 tomorrow.
Also does anyone know what the max voltage should be set to with this unit?
With my milk bottle filter in place I set 100% at about 180mV. Without the filter it used to be about 220mV.
Maby I just have a realy think bottle cap. Because I just measured my peak during the day and it was 90mV using the cap.
Has anyone managed to achive a solar sensor that follows the movement of the sun? Any ideas how I could easily construct one or get one from?
Maby I just have a realy think bottle cap.
Mine is not the cap - its the actual bottle plastic, so its quite an opaque white, but enough to stop the overload dropouts…
Re following the sun - there is another WD user on the forums here that has used 3 small solar panels rather than the supplied sensor. This gives a much better tracking than the single sensor supplied with the kit.
I checked my voltage at solar noon today and it was 132mv. But since the sun is down in your hemisphere right now, I suspect that will change when it moves back up here. It’s a pain in the ass right now that I work nights, I’m asleep when the sun comes up, and at work when the sun goes down, so the only time I can monitor what my sensor’s reading are is during mid-day when it’s pretty much at 100%. I really won’t be able to do anything until over the Christmas holiday when I’m off work for 4 days (yippee!!)