Re: Wind talker

[Steve Cahill]

Hello George:

 

Thanks for the alert. I think it's because of our known problem with the anemometer. I just remote-logged into the windtalker box, and it was getting good radio messages just fine from the anemometer all day... but the messages said that it was zero speed. I remote-reset the anemometer sending unit, and now it is sending the speed, but the direction-signal is stuck on due south. I am guessing that the sending unit got confused and quit sending the speed because it is not seeing the direction signals - that's what due-south, steady, means. And the missing direction signal is our known problem.

 

These kinds of intermittent problems are hard to debug. Likely the reed-switch within the anemometer head is the problem, but it could be a connection problem somewhere in the wires up to the top, or (less likely) some kind of problem in the sending unit that takes the anemometer wire's signals and feeds the radio. Test solution is to replace the anemometer.

 

If I'm there when it is sick, we could check the wires coming out of the anemometer where it plugs into the topside connector, or we could dig up the vault and test the 4 wires coming down from the head. In either case to see if the reed-switches are opening and closing as the cup-wheel turns. Likely we'd find that the weather-vane switch is stuck open, or closed, and we'd be back to changing the anemometer head anyway. If changing the head doesn't do it, then we would want to take a hard look at the in-line connector up on top, where we plug in the anemometer. That's the 2nd-most-likely place for a problem - if we had an open in the wires doing to the direction reed-switch through that connector, it would look the same as a bad reed-switch.

 

The check of the wiring and the head is pretty simple; the anemometer is wired so that one of the two reed switches is connected between the middle two wires and the other of the two reed switches is connected between the outer two wires in the 4 wires going to the anemometer head. When the cups turn slowly, with the cable unplugged and one or the other of the two wire-pairs probed across with an ohm-meter, you'll see the cup-wheel speed switch pulse open/closed (ohm-meter pulses open/short) as the wheel swings a magnet past the speed switch (which closes when the magnet is close) and the direction switch pulse closed/open as the wheel turns and swings a shield between the weathervane's magnet and the weathervane's central reed switch.

 

So far this problem has fixed itself, by itself. Which makes it impossible to debug except by swapping things out. I haven't figured out whether it is specific to wet days - that would be strong indicator that the connector on top is bad. Since it looks like this problem happened earlier in the week for one day, we might want to develop a sense of urgency about swapping out the anemometer. And looking at the connector. Next weekend, people?

 

S. Cahill

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: George Reeves <airh...@hotmail.com>
To: Cahill Steve <Svca...@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Sep 7, 2010 3:00 pm
Subject: Wind talker

Hey Steve
FYI The windtalker not reporting speed again.

George

[Stephen Wasson]

All the "replacement" anemometers have been received from Peet Bros.  They're ready for installation whenever there are enough folk to do it...

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Stephen Wasson
Secretary/Treasurer
Coastal Condors, Marina CA
USHGA Chapter 084 (aka 136)

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