Stumped with solar data from Davis VP (original) coming in

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Hi folks, I’m running 10.37R316 and has been peachy with my Texas Instruments WLS-8000, but that has no functioning solar sensor.

A friend is moving and took down his Davis Vantage Pro, original. Its a bit off on temp and all, but my intent is to test out the solar function and plot it.

The console shows good temp, off on humidity, wind and direction are smack on. The solar value (no UV) goes from 0 at night to a wee bit over 1000 on this rare sunny day.

After stopping WD, starting it again and then doing a station select for the Davis VP, I set the baud rate and the datalogger to default with Rev 3, although both seem to work.

I get blinking green boxes, the wind and all data appear fine EXCEPT the solar value (shown about wind direction) is zero. I went to the solar setup and looked at the screen to see what the raw data values are, and they show zero.

I went through the FAQ and the wiki and have all things set according to the nicely imaged demonstrations of what the screens are supposed to look like, but I did not turn on the weather icons to be driven by the solar value since it is zero and would no doubt say dark on the screen.

I am feeding out a customtextOut.txt to drive GraphWeather, and the MaxSolarPossible value is tracking right, and is in agreement with the calculated value displayed in the solar setup show raw data tab. The value output from WD to the VPSolar is zero.

I have the little green ON switch set for the solar. I have the Solar Sensor (but not solar plus UV) check box checked.

Since ALL other data is flowing from the Davis and is displaying correctly I’m wondering what I’ve overlooked or not checked correctly.

Is there a selection on the DAvis that I need to check or toggle to get it to send the solar values out in the data stream?

Is there a way to see the data values coming in from the Davis and WD is getting them, to check what values are coming in, some sort of log that shows what the latest data grab was, and if so what is the column that the solar value should be in?

Thanks for any assistance you might offer. This is driving me nuts and I know it must be some little thing I’ve missed.

I’m SOOO close!

Dale

2

first, I would be using the latest version of WD
the version you have is old

then, make sure you have ticked that you have solar, in the davis station type setup
and then make sure you have set the sun moon lat/long correct and you have set the solar setup settings correct too and the switch is on there
there is a youtube video on how to do all that (first on the list)

http://www.weather-display.com/youtubevideos.php

3

I see in this thread http://discourse.weather-watch.com/p/484212 that you were previously getting solar values from “somewhere”. Maybe you have one of the alternate, i.e. not from the station, sources of solar selected in WD?

4

Thanks, I’m off to watch some Utube.

I had previously used a Texas Weather Instruments 8000 with a solar sensor that got fried by a lightning strike. With a $300 replacement quote, I left it off, hoping to get some other sensor cheaper or a Davis eventually.

The solar had been coming to WD from the TWI station, no secondary inputs like LabJack, etc.

I’ll also update to the latest version of WD, thanks again.

Oh, is there a way to see if solar data are coming in? I looked at the minute by minute log and all sorts of stuff is being saved, but no mention in the header of Solar.

When Brian was helping me with a zero to -10 below problem, there was a was of looking at the data stream coming in from the station, but I can’t find this as an option for the Davis.

I’ll keep you posted and many thanks for the quick response! Dale

5

Solar is in the separate vantagelog monthly files.

6

also check under view, davis vp extra sensor info

7

Does the raw data logging work with the VP?

try setup advanced/misc tick log the raw data then see under view, WS2010/WS2500 data setup
8

Now I have bungled something up.

On the computer running WD, I downloaded the most recent .zip update and unzipped to that directory (not under program files).

When the install was done I ran WeatherDisplay.exe and got “procedure entry point except_handle_4_common could not be found in dll msvcrt”

Then I downloaded the whole package, and installed it into the directory, whereupon when it finished and asked if I wanted to run WD, I left the check box on, and hit finish, whereupon the same error box popped up.

After doing a bit of looking for what the msvcrt.dll was, I decided to stop there and ask for any pointers.

Should I saving my various configuration files such as customtext.txt and so on and do a fresh install, or is there something I can do to bring it back again?

Thanks for any guidance before I goof it up further.
Dale

9

Looks like you are using Windows Xp?
Try installing the build 81 download
Then run weatherdisplay.exe