ws3080 repair / explanation for wrong data

[runge....@googlemail.com]

Hi,

i had some interesting findings about my ws3080 weather station (please see the pictures attached) i would like to share with you and perhaps it helps you in case you get the same errors.

I have my weather station ws3080 for quite some years now (at least 7 years, perhaps even more).
The weather station is mounted outside on a pole with no protection against rain or weather.

In the last year i had very rare hugh spikes in temperature, wind speed, ...

Two weeks ago the weatherstation did not send any data anymore.
Since we have a lot of rain the last time and no sun i checked the batteries in the sender module of the station.
And yes one battery was leaking, so i exchanged the batteries with some generic AA rechargeable batteries.
But when connecting the sensors i did not get temperature, humidity and other data from the sender unit.

So i started checking everything.
I recognized that the solar unit had green stuff inside and water was soaking up until the PCB.
I opened the solar unit and at some places it was a little corrosion ongoing.
I cleaned everything by removing the green stuff, cleaning the PCB with alcohol and a toothbrush and let it dry.

After connecting everything the same problem existed.
So i disassembled the sender unit.
And i was shocked.
Not only by dead spiders everywhere but also that the PCB had turned white by some residue, perhaps through water or sweating.
So i also cleaned this carefully with alcohol and a toothbrush from the side you can access when opened the housing.

After also drying this and connecting everything again the station started working fine again.

With this findings i have no doubt that the strange data i had from time to time are also caused by the slow degradation of the PCB caused by weather and other factors.
So if you face the same problems carefully opening the components and cleaning the PCBs might solve your problems.


I wish you all a happy new year and all the best in the coming year!
Stefan

[Mark Jarvis]

I've done something very similar several times now. My kit is now something like 12 years old and the transmitter has randomly died a few times over the years. The humidity reading has also been 99% permanently for the last few years.

I have taken it apart about 2 or 3 times and found similar dead spiders and dense web which I cleaned with water and washing up liquid, and white sediment on the PCB which I scrubbed off with nail varnish remover and a toothbrush. I last did this a few month ago when it died again and ate batteries in a day with the LED just permanently on, but this time I also dried it off with a hairdryer and deliberately got it so hot I couldn't hold it (I used a clamp) but not so hot that things started melting/burning/smelling. I figured the manufacturing process would get hot enough to melt/reflow all the solder which is far hotter than a hairdryer and since it wasn't working, I thought I had nothing to lose.

This seemed to do the trick and the cleaning worked and the heat appeared to bring the humidity sensor back to life too. It's not perfect, in sub zero temperatures it starts flaking out again, but I would certainly recommend the hairdryer blast if anyone has issues with the humidity sensor (without batteries loaded of course!).

Let's hope all of our devices last long into and hopefully beyond 2024!

Mark

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