RE:smartweather

[TomWilliams2000]

hello there,
I recently started my new weather underground station with smartweather and cumulus, and all was going well until this morning when i encountered the error shown in the screenshot below, i am under the impression that the two pieces of software (cumulus and smartweather) are fighting each other and so this error is occuring.
if anyone can help or knows of a solution to the problem,please could you help me?
tom

[Super-T]

As far as I know you cannot run the 2 programmes together.

[sfws]

Tom, this is the third topic you have started, essentially on same theme.

On 2 April you asked about using "EasyWeather option in Cumulus" and software clashes with that option.

On 7 April you asked about leaving your computer on with that option.

Yesterday (11 April) you once more ask about software clashes with that option, i.e. you are continuing first topic's issue.

As Water01 said in your first topic, you need to have both devices on all the time if Cumulus is using the "EasyWeather option" as it needs to read the file that your weather station is updating, and it only processes what it reads in that file when it has changed, and that means the other software must be running to change it.

Let me step back from all this.
Does your station have a USB connection to the computer where you got that screen shot from?
If it does, then Cumulus (of either flavour) can talk to your weather station via that interface directly, but only if you stop running SmartWeather.
You would need to choose the Fine Offset option, as your station does not have solar sensors as far as I can tell from that screenshot. In that mode, Cumulus interrogates the station every
half minute or so, that is more frequently than the station sensor reading actually update, but that just means it reads the same on two successive reads in approximately half the cases.

Assuming that it does have a USB, assuming that the Fine Offset option works, then you would be able to turn off your device overnight, the effects on accuracy I mentioned before would still apply, but Cumulus on restarting (with the logging option Paul mentioned ticked) would read the (by default, have you changed this interval yet?) the readings logged every half hour in the station console. To change the interval from every 30 minutes, either do it using an option on your SmartWeather screen, or download the utility https://cumuluswiki.org/Downloads/SetLogger.zip for setting the logger interval.

[TomWilliams2000]

Let me step back from all this.
Does your station have a USB connection to the computer where you got that screen shot from?
Yes it does

You would need to choose the Fine Offset option, as your station does not have solar sensors as far as I can tell from that screenshot.
The station has no form of UV sensor, only a solar panel to charge the batteries in the transmitter.

(by default, have you changed this interval yet?)
Yes I have, to 5 minutes as smartweather will only let me go as low as 5.

[sfws]

Does your station have a USB connection to the computer where you got that screen shot from?

Yes it does

One more question:

Are you using version 1.7.15 (27 August 2008) or newer of Cumulus 1

If you are using an older version, the "Fine Offset" option is not available, the only way to communicate with your weather station is the Easy Weather File option.
Assuming you are using 1.9.4 patch 2 (build 1099.2) released 28 January 2020....
1. stop running SmartWeather
2. Before you start running Cumulus 1, edit Cumulus.ini, find [Station] section, find line that currently says Type=4, change that line to say Type=5 and save the file.
3. Start Cumulus

Now those steps have changed the option to "FineOffset" you can relax, and enjoy more functionality from Cumulus 1 than you had with EasyWeather File option.
There is much more available than you could access with SmartWeather.
If you later swap to Cumulus MX, then there is even more functionality available, such as automatically updating a database. See various Wiki articles for more information.

5 minutes should be fine (as indeed would 10 minutes if you had selected that), the other utility I linked to will reduce it to 2 minutes if you later decide you need that, but this interval is only used when Cumulus is re-started, having been stopped because you wanted to switch off your computer, and Cumulus has to catch up with missed data from your console.

[water01]

Tom I am not sure why you have never mentioned the USB connection before, but on looking at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIeY80Jc8eI it would appear to be a FineOffset weatherstation and as sfws has mentioned if it is, then running it directly connected to your computer would be a much better option than using the .dat file.

[TomWilliams2000]

Hello everyone and happy Easter!
I have tried using the fine offset setting on cumulus and it has not worked, which makes me think that the weather station and smart weather are using a proprietary protocol to communicate over the USB connection.
I have since bought myself a bresser weather station which should come within the week, this new weather station has a direct connection to weather underground so I will not need to leave the laptop on all the time.
Tom