Weewx archive_interval ignored because of HW station intervall

[Miloslav Pawlica]

Hi, I hope that somebody can explain it to me. 

I use weewx for 3 years now. My first weather stations WH1080 just died. Its memory is completely dead, do not stores any data and Weewx is not able communicate with station over usb. So I got new station. It is again WH1080. 

With same configuration as before, like 5 minutes archive_interval the station will again die in 3 years. I would like to avoid that. Therefore I have deiced to use archive_interval 30 minutes, to save memory from too many writes.Still I would like to update date by weewx more often then every 30 minutes.

If I understand correctly Weewx is able to read just live data from Weather station, so there should be no real reason to use internal memory of device. So when software data generation is configured, pooling is set to 10 minutes weewx should simply created its outputs every 10 minutes from its own software database located on server and then push data to ftp.  Still, it does not work like this. Whatever I configure, weewx ignores it and use station hardware archive_interval and output is generated only every 30 minutes.

My question is, why does weewx has option like archive_interval if it is ignored or what is the reason for pooling from station every 60 seconds, when archive interval is much longer? 

I was reading all posts here regarding weewx and Fineoffset stations. Still I do not see a way how to make it work better. 

Thanks :o)

[Thomas Keffer]

The key is to change option record_generation from 'hardware' to 'software':

[StdArchive]

    record_generation = software

-tk

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[Miloslav Pawlica]

Actually it is not. I did that, restarted weewx and nothing has change. I think that I'm starting to understand that. 

Pooling interval is only used for plugins like RapidFire for WU. So the best option to lower stress put on station is to leave archive_interval as default 30 minutes, extended pooling interval from 60s to more and then use some plugin to export live-pooled data.  If we do not use RapidFire or similar plugin, pooling interval has not really purpose, so you can set it to longer period to avoid unnecessary usb lockups and weather stations restarts. I believe that this will significantly extend station lifespan. 

Actually it is funny, how much problems we can get with USB connected weather stations. This explains why are stations Vendors slowly leaving this solution and moving to cloud enabled devices. I do not see real benefit of it for power users, except less hardware problems and conflicts. 

Dne pátek 3. ledna 2020 14:49:14 UTC+1 Thomas Keffer napsal(a):

The key is to change option record_generation from 'hardware' to 'software':

[StdArchive]

    record_generation = software

-tk

On Fri, Jan 3, 2020 at 5:03 AM Miloslav Pawlica <pawlica...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, I hope that somebody can explain it to me. 

I use weewx for 3 years now. My first weather stations WH1080 just died. Its memory is completely dead, do not stores any data and Weewx is not able communicate with station over usb. So I got new station. It is again WH1080. 

With same configuration as before, like 5 minutes archive_interval the station will again die in 3 years. I would like to avoid that. Therefore I have deiced to use archive_interval 30 minutes, to save memory from too many writes.Still I would like to update date by weewx more often then every 30 minutes.

If I understand correctly Weewx is able to read just live data from Weather station, so there should be no real reason to use internal memory of device. So when software data generation is configured, pooling is set to 10 minutes weewx should simply created its outputs every 10 minutes from its own software database located on server and then push data to ftp.  Still, it does not work like this. Whatever I configure, weewx ignores it and use station hardware archive_interval and output is generated only every 30 minutes.

My question is, why does weewx has option like archive_interval if it is ignored or what is the reason for pooling from station every 60 seconds, when archive interval is much longer? 

I was reading all posts here regarding weewx and Fineoffset stations. Still I do not see a way how to make it work better. 

Thanks :o)

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[Miloslav Pawlica]

I have just found, that actually it was bug. archive_interval was fixed in version 3.9. I use version 3.8. 

Dne pátek 3. ledna 2020 15:07:59 UTC+1 Miloslav Pawlica napsal(a):

[Thomas Keffer]

In my experience, usb-connected devices are more reliable because they are not dependent on network connections.  My Vantage Pro has 14+ years of data without a single record missing. That's very hard to do with networked-based solutions.

Vendors are moving to cloud-based solutions not to increase reliability, but because most users want "plug and play," it allows vendors to charge a subscription forever, and they end up owning the data.

-tk

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[Miloslav Pawlica]

I also agree with you, I was originally meaning "cheap" stations. Vantage Pro price is for example 15 times higher then price of FineOffset WH1080. It would be nice to have better station, but I do not want to invest so much, regardless how great this station is. 

My second station is Ventus 831. This stations do not suffer from hw issues like FineOffset WH1080, but it time to time lose sensor connection and then connection "refresh" must be done, which is sometimes for me impossible to do, because station is located in remote location. 

Nothing is perfect :o)

Still after I have experienced permanent memory failure on one station, I will switch both my stations to software generation and limit pooling/archive intervals. Hopefully this will fix it. It is pretty funny, because originally I was only fighting lifespan problem of SDcards on RPI, I was stupid to not think about same issue on weather station :-D

Dne pátek 3. ledna 2020 16:13:50 UTC+1 Thomas Keffer napsal(a):

In my experience, usb-connected devices are more reliable because they are not dependent on network connections.  My Vantage Pro has 14+ years of data without a single record missing. That's very hard to do with networked-based solutions.

Vendors are moving to cloud-based solutions not to increase reliability, but because most users want "plug and play," it allows vendors to charge a subscription forever, and they end up owning the data.

-tk

On Fri, Jan 3, 2020 at 7:08 AM Miloslav Pawlica <pawlica...@gmail.com> wrote:

Actually it is not. I did that, restarted weewx and nothing has change. I think that I'm starting to understand that. 

Pooling interval is only used for plugins like RapidFire for WU. So the best option to lower stress put on station is to leave archive_interval as default 30 minutes, extended pooling interval from 60s to more and then use some plugin to export live-pooled data.  If we do not use RapidFire or similar plugin, pooling interval has not really purpose, so you can set it to longer period to avoid unnecessary usb lockups and weather stations restarts. I believe that this will significantly extend station lifespan. 

Actually it is funny, how much problems we can get with USB connected weather stations. This explains why are stations Vendors slowly leaving this solution and moving to cloud enabled devices. I do not see real benefit of it for power users, except less hardware problems and conflicts. 

Dne pátek 3. ledna 2020 14:49:14 UTC+1 Thomas Keffer napsal(a):

The key is to change option record_generation from 'hardware' to 'software':

[StdArchive]

    record_generation = software

-tk

On Fri, Jan 3, 2020 at 5:03 AM Miloslav Pawlica <pawlica...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, I hope that somebody can explain it to me. 

I use weewx for 3 years now. My first weather stations WH1080 just died. Its memory is completely dead, do not stores any data and Weewx is not able communicate with station over usb. So I got new station. It is again WH1080. 

With same configuration as before, like 5 minutes archive_interval the station will again die in 3 years. I would like to avoid that. Therefore I have deiced to use archive_interval 30 minutes, to save memory from too many writes.Still I would like to update date by weewx more often then every 30 minutes.

If I understand correctly Weewx is able to read just live data from Weather station, so there should be no real reason to use internal memory of device. So when software data generation is configured, pooling is set to 10 minutes weewx should simply created its outputs every 10 minutes from its own software database located on server and then push data to ftp.  Still, it does not work like this. Whatever I configure, weewx ignores it and use station hardware archive_interval and output is generated only every 30 minutes.

My question is, why does weewx has option like archive_interval if it is ignored or what is the reason for pooling from station every 60 seconds, when archive interval is much longer? 

I was reading all posts here regarding weewx and Fineoffset stations. Still I do not see a way how to make it work better. 

Thanks :o)

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[Thomas Keffer]

Wow! 15 times the price? Vantage stations are good, but not that good!

-tk

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