Console Locks up after a reset (Maplins N96GY) Any point trying to fix it?

[gjchester]

Hi

My Trusty Maplin station console has stopped reliably connecting to the PC. I can reset it, it works for a day or so (sometimes a week) then locks up, needing a reset to fix it.

The console itself is fine, but when it locks up and I pull the batteries to reset it I get random alarms set, and I have some non numerical entries for the Min /Max valies so something wrong in the console electronics. I let it a month disconencted from power and batteries but I still have the weird values in memory so its not fully resetting.

However the data displayed on the console is reading fine, the temerature outside reads about what it is, and when it rains the rain gauge records the rain and even the clock keeps running, so the electronics thats sends data out is the issue.

I suspect I know the answer to this but is it worth doing anything with it? I guess the issue is in the elecronics doing the sending to the PC, I know the Fine Offsets could be problematical, that why it had the code to avoid lockups. Cumulus runs on a linux VM in the house and thats what the Maplins using is connected to by USB, so if there is a way to put in a 433Mhz rx cheaply and to decode the radio I can try that but I don't know if that viable.

I have no idea how old this is, its got to be at least 5 years, maybe up to 10. But before I replace it I thought I'd ask if anyone had any ideas, I did search but didnt find anythin useful.

I'll probalby get a EcoWitt if I have to replace the unit, but I'm torn what to get. I dont really need the fancy screen, I've been more than happy with the LCD one of the maplins unit, but then again I do look at the screen on my desk so I dont jsut want to go to the in app / online only version.

[Big Daddy]

I had similar with mine a few years ago and decided to got the Ecowitt route.

I have the WS80 6-in-1, A WS40 rain gauge plus an additional lightning sensor (WH57) and internal T&H sensor (WH31) which I have in an outside building.

Similarly I didnt want to pay for the expense of a display screen but there is a good alternative here if you have an old tablet lying around.

viewtopic.php?t=19342

It looks a bit dawnting at first but once you get the hang of it it a great way to display.

I have a small 7" android tablet on my desk which runs "fullykiosk" to display it full screen and I have added several bits and made some modifications to suit what I want. You can see it here:
http://midlifedad.me.uk/wBox/desk.html#loaded

You can click on several of the elements and get some charts, and then just click anywhere to get back. Try Temperature, wind speed, pressure, etc. and click on the forecast to get an slightly extended version.

This runs on the same pi that I run Cumulus on.

Andy

[gjchester]

Hi

Thanks for the reply, Did you find the WittBoy senser needed a heater over winter, mine will go at the bottom of the garden with no power, so if it needs heat over winter I'll have to look at another option, probalby the more conventional ones Ecowitt do.

It also confirms my thinking that its not a lot of good to feed weathe to the web anymore, however its perfectly fine on my desk, so I guess the question is do I want to spend a lot of money to feed the weather to others?

In a way if it was just fully kaput it would be an easier choice, but the fact its working locally makes the decison to spend money to replace it a bit harder

[Big Daddy]

I dont have the Witaboy (with the built in rain sensor) mine is the WS80. It does have a heating plate but I have never used it, similar situation, no power available where its sited. I am in open country so we do suffer from some lower temperatures but I havent noticed any major effect by not having it switched on and we get very little snow. Having said that, I am not a "serious" weather watcher so probably dont take the readings as seriously.

Andy

[jimi]

2023 must be a bad year for Maplin N96GY's. Mine has operated for 11 years with just fhe occasional usb lockup and battery changes, however this year it started locking up more frequently until I was lucky if it would last an hour, batteries out reset was needed everytime to get it working.
Tried a multitude of things to cure it but to no avail, came to the same conclusion as you, something internal related to the usb as the console on its own operates fine.
I have spares for everything (other than the console) that I bought when they were really cheap so I was reluctant to bin the lot and buy something else.
What I have done is use a sdr usb module ( its actually a DTV dongle I've had for years) to read the signals from the outdoor array this is running on a Raspberry Pi 3B ( I had several I was given for free) using WEEWX software I added a BME280 sensor to give me pressure/ indoor humidity & temp, it's now uploading to WU etc and my website and seems ok.
Still fine tuning it so WIP, at some stage I'll try and get it working with CMX but at the moment it was easier for me ( I'm just a tinkerer) to get the data from the SDR/BME280 into weewx rather than CMX. I was also able to import my 10+years of data from WU to WEEWX. So far it's only cost me around £15 for the BME280, so cheap so far. As a bonus without being connected by usb the console appears to work fine, no problems with it so far (3 weeks)
It might be worth looking into for yourself.
https://jlawson.co.uk/index.php/weather

[gjchester]

I d assumed it was a lost cause

I've a few Pi's around (even a Zero W) and as I just moved from a cheapo RTL SDR dongle to a "proper" AirNav Radarbox my 1090 plane finder, I've even got a cheap SDR around somewhere.

I'll give it a go, did you ahve to confidure the SDR much in WeeWx?

Cheers...

[jimi]

It wasn't bad, I started by using Raspberry Pi imager to write plain 32b Raspberry Pi OS (Bullseye) sd card. Installed RTL_433 on it and scanned for the N96GY signals found them straight away, its worth taking a note of the names as you'll need them later, they look like "wind_gust.35.FOWHx080Packet" the 35 is the station id (I think)
Then installed Weewx + a couple of extensions (weewx-sdr being one) then edit weewx.conf sensor map section to reflect your signal names, change the station type to sdr and that got the basic station working and recording data from the outdoor sensors.
There's a fair bit more configuration needed to get it uploading to the net and also configuring the pi for the BME280 sensor, there's another extension that incorporates the Pressue/temp/humidity from that into weewx. This site will help http://www.weewx.com/docs.html/latest/ there's a lot of info out there, finding it can be a pain as it's scattered about. I had a quite a few problems mostly of my own making If you get stuck give me a shout, quite happy to help if I can remember what I did

[gjchester]

First job is to remember wher I put the SDR dongle whne I took it of the planefinder

[jimi]

It'll be in the obvious place you put it so you would remember where it was got the t-shirt for that one