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Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2024 12:57 am
by RoostWeather
Hello,

I found a few posts from 2012 about this but nothing since, so I will ask here. Can Meteobridge Pro2 handle Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder input? If not, are there any plans to implement it? Was a unit ever sourced to do so... :)

Thanks,
Dan

Re: Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2024 10:53 pm
by RoostWeather
Anyone? Thanks.

Re: Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2024 11:10 pm
by Mattk
11 years ago is quite a while. Was there an indication of it being implemented? Who was sourcing the unit in 2012?

Re: Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2024 1:18 am
by RoostWeather
The admin of this site was - viewtopic.php?p=12627#p12627 - or at least it was mentioned.

Re: Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2024 1:41 am
by Mattk
That would appear there was no subsequent unit provided for the purpose?

Re: Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2024 2:54 pm
by Gyvate
the way other applications deal with the those days version of the Blake-Larsen SunRecorder was processing the text file SRSunshine.dat which is created by the SunRecorder Software every minute.
The nowadays available version doesn't provide that software but has a RS485 interface only.

As far as I know, owning the old B-L SunRecorder, for neither version an interface for MB was created.
CumulusMX can import the SRsunshine.dat data - and I use the per minute graph generated by the (Windows) software of the old version in a Weather template.

At least for the old version (text file) you might be able write your own script extracting the accrued sunshine duration and import it into your MB database.
However you would either need to repurpose an existing database record field or modify/extend the existing database schema by creating (a) new record(a) and respective table entries (minute, day, hour) in the MB database.
Could be worth the trial ...
How to automate the import would be another question as MB only allows manual import (or the script based version is not documented).

If you want MB to directly read the live data, then for both devices (old and new) some code would need to be written and integrated into MB to translate the RS485 signals at a USB port every second into sunshine yes, no information and accumulate the yes seconds per minute and hour.

Re: Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2024 2:59 pm
by Gyvate
Mattk wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2024 1:41 am That would appear there was no subsequent unit provided for the purpose?
the (rather trivial) interface description exists - serial signal via 1-wire USB interface - < x V = 0 (no sunshine), >= x = 1 (sunshine).
No unit really needed for writing the respective code (even though easier to test) - a user who has one for testing would suffice.

But, as smart this B-L SunRecorder a device is, there are rather few units sold ...

Re: Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2024 11:01 am
by admin
not on my feature list because of lacking demand.

Re: Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2024 12:32 pm
by davidmc36
Gyvate wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2024 2:59 pm
Mattk wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2024 1:41 am That would appear there was no subsequent unit provided for the purpose?
the (rather trivial) interface description exists - serial signal via 1-wire USB interface - < x V = 0 (no sunshine), >= x = 1 (sunshine).
No unit really needed for writing the respective code (even though easier to test) - a user who has one for testing would suffice.

But, as smart this B-L SunRecorder a device is, there are rather few units sold ...
I have a unit, but not the skill to write code. Could my "deactivated" TP Link MB be used to test?

Could one start from scratch and learn enough to have ability to write the code? I have worked a few Arduino projects.

If somehow the code got written.....would admin be willing to add to MB OS?

Re: Blake-Larsen sunshine recorder

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2024 4:36 pm
by RoostWeather
Thanks all for comments on this - and apologies for only replying now!

Appreciate it's quite a niche request, thanks for considering anyway. I did use the suggestion of interrogating the .dat files and writing my own script to export these values into a separate database for further processing downstream. So many thanks for that!

All the best,
Dan H