Resolved Fine Offset USB issues: A different solution!

[Michael Messer]

All:  I posted here about being unable to resolve fine offset USB errors preventing my Ambient WS-2080 weather station's data from getting up to the Weather Underground.

All attempts involving resetting the weather station console did not fix it.  Even wiped my SD card and went back to a known GOOD image from when I first set up Weewx successfully.  Same errors.

Today I decided to connect the console to my old laptop and run Cumulus to see if Cumulus would, too, be unable to get data.  Upon connection, Cumulus immediately began displaying the data from my weather station!

I looked for some way to get Cumulus to maybe reset my console, but saw no such options.  

Just for grins, I restarted my Rapsberry Pi, connected the console, then started Weewx.  Boom.  Instant connection, no FOUSB errors!  

So my guess is that my Cumulus session somehow cleared some sort of issue within my PWS console.  

Not 100% comfortable since I still have no idea how/why FOUSB issues started, but at least it looks like I now know of a fix!  Hopefully I'll get another couple of years of good service from my Pi and Weewx, and when I win the lottery I'll get a new top-of-the-line weather station... and will install it at my new house.  Maybe in Fiji or Italy or Colorado.  Or all of the above.

[Thomas Keffer]

Glad to hear it worked out, at least temporarily. 

Hopefully Matthew will chime in with a few insights.

Good luck on that lottery.

-tk

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[Greg from Oz]

I took the battery out of my console...permanently and I put in a normally closed relay into the 5V of the usb cable that goes to the console.

I run a cron job that checks to see if the weather index.html file has NOT been changed in 20 minutes. If is has not then the same script restarts weewx. If it still doesn't update then the home automation turns on the power to the relay and it opens and drops the power to the console and resets the console. Weex is started again.

If all of that doesn't work then the script runs  wee_device --clear-memory

if all of that doesn't work I have a backup console...........

Touch wood...I haven't had any issues with the fineoffset console for years. I wrote the script when I was USING cumulus....it locked up lots.

[Michael Messer]

Greg, that's brilliant!  If I thought I'd have some free time, I'd ask about the code for the cron job script, etc.  I better not!  

Sounds like you're very well-prepared.  Thanks for your input!

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[Greg from Oz]

Here is the script. Its a bit rough but it works ok.

#!/bin/bash

#Check to see if the weather station is working

if [[ "`pidof -x $(basename $0) -o %PPID`" ]]; then

        echo "Process $(basename $0) is already running run killall $(basename $0) to stop it if you want."

        exit 1

fi

FILENAME="/var/www/html/weather/index.html"

FILENAME2="/tmp/$(basename $0)2"

BROKEN="NO"

minutes2check=15

REASON="Weather station broken"

time=$(date +%k%M)

if [ $(( (`date +%s` - `stat -L --format %Y $FILENAME`) > ($minutes2check*60) )) == 1 ] ; then

        REASON="Restarted weewx because  $FILENAME is outdated."

        #lets try just restarting the weewx to see it that works then wait 6 minutes

        #if it is still not working then turn the console off and on

        /etc/init.d/weewx restart

        wee_reports

        echo $(basename $0) Weather station $REASON| /usr/bin/mail -s "Weather station $REASON" your...@wherever.com 

        sleep 360

        #check the file again

        if [ $(( (`date +%s` - `stat -L --format %Y $FILENAME`) > ($minutes2check*60) )) == 1 ] ; then

                BROKEN="YES"

                REASON="Rebooted console because  $FILENAME is outdated."

#I use heyu to turn on and off X10 power supply which is hooked to the relay

                /usr/local/bin/heyu on c4

                sleep 15

                /usr/local/bin/heyu off c4

                sleep 15

                /etc/init.d/weewx restart

                echo $(basename $0) Weather station $REASON| /usr/bin/mail -s "Weather station $REASON" your...@wherever.com 

                #might check for unstable read in syslog file and if so will stop weewx and then run wee_device --clear-memory

                #the above has happened before

        fi

fi

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[Alexandros Bagos]

The permanent solution for me was to replace the console with an SDR receiver and a pressure sensor.

Cutting the power to the console worked on 10% of the times for me, because the raspberry pi wouldn't "reset" the usb port most of the times (I had to remove and instert the USB cable anyways).

Moreover, since I kept the console, I notice that it looses the connection to the station quite often (dashes on the screen) while the SDR receiver maintains the connection without problems all of the time.

Alex.