WMR200 logger support?

[skyewright]

Are there any plans to support extraction of 'missed data' from the WMR200 logger?

I ask because living where I do I need to plan for power cuts. They are not frequent, but they will happen, and when they do it is quite likely to be during 'interesting' weather.

I know the 'slug' is only rated at 10W and I do have UPSs, but it's not unusual to have at least one extended (i.e. 6-8 hours or greater, 24 hrs is not unknown) power outage a year here. Even if there isn't an 'accidental' power cut of that length there will almost certainly be an occasion when the power company pre-arrange for a cut-off for most of a working day to allow for essential maintenance[1].

I've skimmed through the manual and appreciate that the WMR200 logger interface details may not yet be available, but other software (e.g. WeatherDisplay) is handling logged data, so maybe that availability change?

[1] We near the end of a 15 mile 'spur' so maintenance, or a new supply, anywhere along that length requires the whole line to be disconnected.

David

[admin]

Hi David,
support for wmr-200 was a hard ride for me, because oregon does not give any information about the protocol of their units. I tried to get under NDA with them, but they didn't even answer.

So I went the hard way in reverse enigneering the interface. As a result I discovered how actual sensor data can be read from the wmr-200. And even there I don not understand every piece of information, but the essential things could be discovered.

Things I didn't find out are:
- how low bat status is signaled (Mteohub does not do this correctly at the moment)
- how to reset/clear the data logger
- how to read data from the logger
- etc.

With the total lack of support from Oregon I doubt that I will be able to uncover how logging works in the wmr-200 in the short term.

The reason that weather display supports all this, is that Brian Hamilton (author of wd) was selected by Oregon to cooperate with them. Brian got pre-production units and specs under NDA. Oregon had to do this, because otherwise there would not have been any SW that you can use with the wmr-200. As told, Brian is unfortunately bound by NDA and cannot say us how to work 100% compatible with the wmr-200.

From my knowledge Meteohub is the only weather station software that supports wmr-200 at the moment (ofcourse, beside weather display :-) ).

To make a long story short,
I am sorry, data logger support for wmr-200 is not on the near future list.

[skyewright]

Is there a time out on this forum? I just typed a long reply, which was thrown away when I posted it, and I no longer seemed to be logged in?

This is essentially just a short test post...

[skyewright]

Here goes again, with a shorter version, just in case...

support for wmr-200 was a hard ride for me, because oregon does not give any information about the protocol of their units. I tried to get under NDA with them, but they didn't even answer.

I'm very impressed with what you have achieved with 'black box' access!

The reason that weather display supports all this, is that Brian Hamilton (author of wd) was selected by Oregon to cooperate with them. Brian got pre-production units and specs under NDA.

I'm familiar with Brian and WD. Over the last month or so I've been able to provide him with a few 'interesting' WMR200 scenarios to consider. ;)

In a thread on Weather-Watch he has recently mentioned that he might take a look at the TCP/IP feed from meteohub, but that is presumably just a stream of data coming out of the console. I imagine that access to logged data requires the ability to send signals to the console (and even if that were possilbe I can imagine that the extra data coming out in response might potentially confuse meteohub itself!).

To make a long story short,
I am sorry, data logger support for wmr-200 is not on the near future list.

Thanks for your time. I'll try to pop in now and again to keep an eye on things. If you want to contact me you'll be welcome. If I had more time available I might well has a go anyway but at present I'm spening far too much time on my Wx and its data - it was supposed to be a tool, not a way of life! :lol:

[admin]

Meteohub provides export data that can be imported to WD. I hope Brian will be abble to implement a tcp/ip socket connection to one of my meteohubs, to get live data as well. I could realize \"near live\" data dropping into WSWIN by it's \"file observation\" feature... WD lacks this.

However, having Meteohub and WD simultanously hooked to one and the same WMR-200 is not a scenario that I assume will be happen in the near future. wmr-928, wmr-100 can be easily solved, but stations with internal logger that provide some kind of bidirectional communication are hard to interface with.

I could implement a universal protcol for meteohub and then meteohub does an abstraction on what station does feed it. But I will need some more installations of Meteohub out there before some will show interest in supporting this.

[skyewright]

Thanks for your reply.

I realised after my earlier message that I'd assumed Brian might look at the 'pass through' style feed - but I think he only mention TCP/IP and there are of course several TCP/IP ports! It would probably make more sense for him to interface with one of the other ports and treat the Meteohub as a generic device (i.e. it doesn't matter where Meteohub sources the data).

If the interface allowed request of data for a particular time (if I've understood correctly the current interface gives access to 'current' values), perhaps WD could handle a Meteohub connection a little like the way it handles the WMR200, i.e. On start-up WD requests logged records since it was last running (i.e 'missed data'), then when it has caught up to the present time it continues with 'current' data in real time.

With the WMR200 the process is additionally complicated because current data is arriving while the 'missed data' is being collected and has to be put to one side until all 'missed data' has been processed, so it may even be that a Meteohub equivalent would be less complex!

If that sort of thing were possible, I think it would be very interesting! People not wanting to run a full PC all the time could run the Meteohub 24/7. They'd run WD when the PC is on, but have access to all the data through catchup on startup (which is how I currently use the WRM200).

Just an idea (and probably one you and / or Brian have thought of already)...

PS. The 'time out' just caught me again - but this time I'd taken the precaution of Select All & Copy before I tried to post! :lol:

[Nimbus43]

Hello,

I am about to install the WMR200 together with the NSLU2 and the Meteohub software. Still waiting for delivery of the WMR200. Using WD, I would like to point out that I intend to use the data logger feature of the WMR200 together with WD in order to avoid a 24 hr operation of my weather PC. If needed, I am willing to support the project.

Kind regards,

Mario

[skyewright]

I am about to install the WMR200 together with the NSLU2 and the Meteohub software. Still waiting for delivery of the WMR200. Using WD, I would like to point out that I intend to use the data logger feature of the WMR200 together with WD in order to avoid a 24 hr operation of my weather PC.

Out of interest, how are you planning on combining operation of the WMR200, NSLU2 and WD?

AIUI you need to have the WMR200 connected to the WD PC to make use of the logger - but if the WMR200 is connected to the WD PC, it isn't connected to the NSLU2.

If you've not tried it already, be aware that collecting data from the logger is not quick. I find it takes around 15 minutes to collect overnight data - and if you read the Weather-Watch forum you'll see that the process has not been without it's problems, and isn't perfect yet.

As it stands at present I'm seriously considering running Meteohub & NSLU2 24/7 as the simpler option!

[Nimbus43]

David:

Yes, I have found out now myself that collecting data from the logger is very slow. However, my problem is that I have four years of weather data now having been recorded by WD. Until now I did not check whether it is possible to import all this data into Meteohub. I'll search the Meteohub for a possibility.

Thanks and kind regards,

Mario

[skyewright]

and if you read the Weather-Watch forum you'll see that the process has not been without it's problems, and isn't perfect yet

I'm very pleased to report that things are now looking pretty good with WD collection of WMR200 logged data. :)

[mattjdalton]

Hi All,

I have an WMR200, and also the SLUG running Meteohub. I would be interested in the surety of being able to use the Datalogger, for the same reasons as other members, we do suffer from power outages here that vary from 30 minutes out to several hours.

I don't run WD, mostly because there are not easy solutions to running that on a G5 iMac, but also because my mac is set to go to sleep so that it is green. (The part I love about Meteohub is the ultra low power consumption)

If you want or need any assistance with testing (I don't really have any coding experience), please let me know.

Thanks

Matt

[admin]

Hi,
I have no idea how to make use of the data logger in the wmr200. without any help from oregon, this would be extremly difficult.

So there is no hope on a timely solution for this. Sorry.

[skyewright]

Hi,
I have no idea how to make use of the data logger in the wmr200. without any help from oregon, this would be extremly difficult.

My impression as a WMR200 / WD user who has spent more time examining the WD log and history files over the last couple of months than he'd initially expected is that as soon as something connects to the WMR200 console it starts to broadcast logged data as well as current data. It seems to be the case that logged records are automatically deleted as they are broadcast.
The hex data stream for the period while logged records are being produced seems to be included in the wmr200history.txt file that WD creates as a diagnostic. I've no reason to believe that the wmr200history.txt file belongs to anyone other than the console owner, so if you (admin) were interested in seeing a wmr200history.txt file I'd be happy to let you have one (or several - I make a habit of saving them).

[skyewright]

My impression...
...as soon as something connects to the WMR200 console it starts to broadcast logged data as well as current data.

But reading elsewhere bi-directional communication seems to be involved. :(
Oh well, I'd pretty much given up on the idea of a reliable way of extracting data from the WMR200 logger anytime soon anyway - hence my move towards the Meteohub solution.
Even after several months of providing feedback to WD, collection of logged data by WD is still far from perfect. The console is running 24/7 (of course) and logs for around 9 hours each night. I do get logged data but quite a lot of minutes "go missing" - I just checked my wind energy figures for February and the sum of all the minutes at the various speeds only comes to 26days and 8hrs (i.e. ~90% of the month).
I'll hope to keep Meteohub and an RFXCOM going on a UPS in case of power failure. I'll keep the WMR200 directly connected to a PC operating as now - both for comparison and perhaps to provide at least a good level of data fill in from the logger if the UPS doesn't make it to the end of a powercut...

[skyewright]

Just to finish this off (maybe?)...

I am now using Meteohub and an RFXCOM. Today I was able to use the Meteohub WD export data to patch the WD log file on the computer that connects directly to the WMR200. :)

Collection of 'missed data' by WD had terminated early and I forgot to manually reset the \"Collecting data from\" time in WD before shutting it down and restarting, so there was a 3 hour gap in my WD logs. With a little editing the Meteohub export filled out that gap nicely. :cheer: