WS2500PC and Weather Display

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1

Hi everybody,
this is Steve from Switzerland, I just enrolled in this interesting forum hoping to learn what there’s to know about weather in general, weather software and hardware.

I’m writing 'cos I’m having a problem: some time ago I bought a LaCrosse WS2500 which came without pc cable, so I ordered an ELV WS2500 PC radio interface to store data even when absent or when pc off.
I’ve got quite all the software on the market, including Weather Display.
Before buying LaCrosse I had a Oregon Scientific cabled WM918, which did a marvellous work, connected via RS232 to the pc and used Weather Display to store data on pc, creating graphs, statistics and so on. All together worked wonderfully.

Since I’ve bought LaCrosse and the ELV WS2500PC datalogger (version 3.1) I’m not able any more to collect data neither store them on the computer using WD, although in WD advertisement it’s confirmed that WS2500PC datalogger is a supported hardware. First of all I must say it’s not an hardware’s trouble, because with both the delivered evaluation software (PC weather station) and Werner Krenn’s WsWin32, data retrieval from WS2500PC datalogger occurs perfectly every 5 minutes with correct data. WD instead retrieves very slowly and with great difficulties the old data resident on the datalogger when opening the program, in case it does, no current conditions and no extremes values are updated on the main screen and dials (while they are in “Extra daily extreme values” and in the graph). Furthermore at opening not all the data on the datalogger are retrieved, at a certain point WD stops downloading, it seems like it gets stuck, 'cos values doesn’t change any more (even current conditions), I need to exit WD and open it again to see a change… Again the countdown timer on the “WS2500 data logger setup” window gets stuck, every time I access it I find my settings changed to default ones, when I access “Weather station type” window in “Control Panel” in setup menu for the first time after opening WD, I find no weather station is selected (even if on the title bar it’s written WS2500PC) and I have to select it again… It’s an absolute disaster!

It seems to me to have set everything properly, but something important seems not to work, and I couldn’t find what. Hope someone of you has the solution, otherwise WD will be absolutely unusable with LaCrosse and ELV datalogger, and it’s a pity 'cos WD is a very good and complete software…

Technical data:
Weather Station LaCrosse WS2500 (sensor version 1.2)
Datalogger ELV WS2500PC (version 3.1 - update 5 mins - connected via serial cable to COM3 port)
Weather Display v. 10.16g

I repeat: it works correctly with Werner Krenn’s WsWin32 (which is unfortunately the limited version) and the delivered evaluation software (PC Weather Station) which doesn’t have the fundamental (for me) FTP function for uploading on the Internet, neither all the nice graphs and statistics, like WD.

Thank you very much for your help.

2

Hi
a couple of things to check:
under view, ws2010/ws2500 data setup, that you have a correct outdoor temperature sensor selected to use (i.e 1 )
and also take note of the raw barometer value…if its too low, then you will need to set a barometer offset, under setup,control panle, barometer offste and rainfall (click on set, then click on save settings)
also recheck you have a ws2500, and not a ws2500 console selected in the weather station type setup (so that it gets data every 5 minutes)
there are people using wd Ok with this data logger…
another thing: dont stop and restart wd if all the data has not downloaded completly…otherwise it will miss it all…it should keep trying again to wake up the data logger (see in the ws2010/ws2500 data setup and info, it will tell you there)
but, also, please try the very latest version, as I did introduce a problem with this weather station type in the data logging

see a person using the software here:
http://www.mannheim-wetter.info/wetter/tag.html

3

hi
i have done some tweaks
its going OK for me, 10.16i, beta
maybe try that version

4

Hi Brian,
thanx for your useful suggestions, which solved most of the problems, especially data retrieval and main screen data update.

Most but not all, I still have some doubts, such as wrong data representation on the graph and interval irregularities in data retrieval, but I want to test the new release of WD for further 48hrs at least, before reporting any eventual bug to you.

By the way, I’ve ordered a cable to connect directly the station with the PC: with the cable should I switch to WS2500 console in setup/control panel?

Thanks for the support!

STEVE :slight_smile:

5

but the console only updates every 15 minutes
even worse than the 5 minute updating of the datalogger

6

Since I don’t have inside sensor, only with the datalogger I can’t get data for inside temp, humidity and pressure.

datalogger ELV WS2500PC itself updates every 5 minutes, WS2500 updates every 2:30-3 minutes, why only every 15 minutes on WD?
with my old wm918 connected via cable both console and WD updated every 2-3 seconds (wind)…

thanx for explaining

STEVE

7

My reply doesn’t directly pertain to your original post but it did bring up a question I was wondering about.

datalogger ELV WS2500PC itself updates every 5 minutes, WS2500 updates every 2:30-3 minutes, why only every 15 minutes on WD?

So I was wondering why only 15 min.

8

the console might update every 3 minutes, but the data to the pc is only every 15 minutes availble as new

does othersoftware get it more often?
i did see where its possible to set the frequency of the data logging to 5 minutes, from the default of 15 minutes, for the ws2500…but i could not make this work…but if it can be done with other software, then you can still use the 5 minute option with the console

9

8O I think I know what you’re saying. Even tho the console (I’m assuming the 2500/2510 works basically the same) updates every 3min or so…it holds the data for about 15min before sending it to pc…correct? Because I notice that when the 15min retrieval takes place from WD it shows about 4 or 5 sets of data retrieving. Just making sure I understand the workings of it before I post things as bugs…

10

what wd does is pad out the data 15 times…becuase with the console i (had) here, and others, there was only 1 set of unique data available to the pc every 15 minutes…that was a fact…but maybe your console has been set to store data every 5 minutes, like the separate data logger, and in that case, use the 5 minute option

11
  1. Ok…now I’m getting a clearer understanding of how it actually works…which brings me to the icon problem from my other post. The icon problem…changing from what it’s supposed to be back to a default seems to be occurring when wd is padding the data for the 14 min…the icon is right when it gets the actual data… once every 15 min…but as soon as WD starts padding the data for the other 14 min it reverts back to the default icon. We’ll lick this problem yet!
    Thanks for listening to my babbling…lol
12

ok, yes, thats look like a good clue
i have 10.16L beta upoading now which hopefully will be better for getting the data…it worked OK for me just now…in a test…

but i am still to figure out about the icon…i will get there (but i may have to head out soon)

13

i am pretty sure i have it licked
uploading 10.16m now

14

:? I just downloaded and installed the 10.16L and icon still doesn’t work correctly. :cry: It’s starting to get dark here so I won’t be able to check it out in detail til tomorrow. I’ll do some more testing with it tomorrow. I’ll also be testing out the data retrieval process and see if it works better. Thanks for your help! We’ll get it licked eventually.

15

hi
just home…for a few hours
its working here for me (its day time here still)
just tested it
it starts working after all the data has been downloaded
…ie when it says no more data

nope, i tell a lie…
its now gone back to the default icon,after it was working…when it went to get data like normal, but there was no more data available…
humm, nearly there…

actualy, its at the next minute after the data is downloaded that it does it…
so i know whats wrong…checking and fixing now

16

:lol: I’m kinda glad it didn’t work for you cause it didn’t for me…lol I have my fingers crossed this time. Yeah it’s that very first min afterward that it goes back to the default icon. And stays that way til WD retrieves more data…

17

fixed it!
tested
works!
uploading 10.16n now :lol:

18

:occasion9: Yay! Now I can hardly wait til daytime here again to try it out! Thanks for all your help. Now for the next problem…lol…just kidding. I’ll be playing around with all the other features now that that problem is solved. Good work!

19

is the normal data retrieving working ok now too?

20

:slight_smile: I just downloaded and installed 10.16n. I’ll let it run awhile and check the data retrieval. I’ll let you know how that is working after a bit.