Advice on moving to new station hardware (prob ecowitt or ambinent)

[loonsailor]

I need a replacement for my 25-year-old Vantage Pro (original, not +) and am considering either the Ecowitt 2551 or the 2553 or the Ambient equivalents.  I'll also add a WH41 and a WH43 (or ambient equivalents) ar quality sensors.  I've got a 25 year database of weather (started on wView) and I'm eager to keep it going.  A couple of questions:

1. How does the ultrasonic anemometer compare to the one in the mechanical ones in accuracy, reliability, and expected longevity?
   
2. Of course, I will want to connect the new station to weeWx.  I see that there is a new pull driver for the GW1000. Is it worth getting the GW1000 for that purpose, or can I use the new driver with the console included with the stations?
3. Is the maximum range from station to console the same for GW1000 and the included console?
4. One of the things I like about my ancient Vantage Pro is that there is a 2-week memory in the station console.  If my linux server goes down for any reason, upon startup weeWX will recapture the data that it missed and populate the DB accordingly.  Very nice!  Is there any equivalent with the stations / consoles that I’m considering?
5. Getting the air quality sensors set up is a stage-2 sort of project for me, and I understand that it’s not completely straightforward, because there is no dedicated PM2.5 field in the standard DB.  Still, though I’ll worry about that implementation a bit later, I’d like to plan for it.  With that in mind, is there any reason to prefer the Ambient or the Ecowitt?  If I’m picking up the data with weeWx, how does it get into one of the public air quality maps?  Or, should I consider getting a PurpleAir instead?  I know it’s pricier, but if there’s a good reason to go that way I’m open to it.  

Any advice will be eagerly, gratefully accepted.  Thanks, in advance.

[Greg Troxel]

"'loonsailor' via weewx-user" <weewx...@googlegroups.com> writes:

> I need a replacement for my 25-year-old Vantage Pro (original, not +) and
> am considering either the Ecowitt 2551 or the 2553 or the Ambient
> equivalents. I'll also add a WH41 and a WH43 (or ambient equivalents) ar
> quality sensors. I've got a 25 year database of weather (started on wView)
> and I'm eager to keep it going. A couple of questions:

I think it speaks really well of davis that your VP is 25 years old. I
got a VP in 2002 (ish,don't really remember) and am now on a VP2, but
that's 18 years.

So I would ask: Why don't you get a VP2? I don't expect that any of the
ecowitt/ambient stuff is going to last 10 years.

Certainly get some ecowitt extra sensors and merge them in. But I
wonder what your expectations are for reliability, and if there is any
real experience yet.

[weather list]

I’ve bought two Davis VP2 wireless units used via Craigslist for $200 - $300 over the past 8 years; both work fine, one in warm salt air (FL) one in coastal NE summer/winter salt air conditions. Davis has parts for all of them, and re-conditioned ISS units and very good support. They seem to me about as bombproof as you can get for amateur use.

I run a PurpleAir on one and will add another (yes, they are pricey, I agree).

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[galfert]

1. The Ultrasonic is better a picking up low wind and may be a bit more precise. But on the top end the ultrasonic stops at 89 mph. The spinning anemometer stops at 99 mph. Longevity is anyone's bet. no moving parts on ultrasonic...but electronics can break just as much as something with moving parts.

2. The GW1000 is worth every penny. You can't get data from an Ambient console without it that includes all sensors. The ObserverIP is junk...I don't even consider that an option.

3. The GW1000 has a bit better range to sensors than the display consoles. Advertised is 300 ft but 100 ft is typical. Some say even 200 ft is possible with the latest version of the GW1000.

4. No, there is no logger on the GW1000. The WS-2000 / HP2551 display does have an SD card storage option but that data would be a pain to get out manually via .csv files. I suppose if you keep it powered up via UPS you can have data there. You can always have more than one system getting data from the GW1000. So that if one is down maybe the other stays up.

5. I've not seen that you can yet publish PM2.5 data into any of the public online services. WU upload takes PM2.5 but if you upload to them they don't yet do anything with this data. Other places will probably soon take PM2.5. There are several reasons to consider Ambient or Ecowitt ...one versus the other. If you go Ambient then you can only ever buy sensors that they sell...because Ecowitt sensors will not work with their display consoles. The GW1000 being that it is Ecowitt will pick up all the sensors....but you won't see them on the WS-2000 display if they aren't Ambient branded. The HP2551 is available for purchase but you can't buy the HP2553. If you are in the US then Ecowitt will not sell you the HP2553. Your only option is to buy the WS-5000. But you could buy the GW1002 with spinning anemometer and then later buy just the WS80 ultransonic from Ambient when it becomes available. Yes more costly because you would be getting a WS68 that you wouldn't need...but it is the only way if you live in the US. That said I'm sort of partial and I like the WS68 just fine. The WH80 needs a heater if you live in colder climate...that is an extra cost and an extra thing to need to wire up for power...and you'll need to devise a way to turn it on/off because that is not built in and it can't have the heater on if it it above a certain temperature. The WH80 to me looks like a bird perch. The WS68 seems more bird proof to me. Ambient does not sell the WS68 and they never will.

[galfert]

By the way Davis just announced an air quality sensor called AirLink. It does PM 1, 2.5, and 10.

https://www.weatherstations.co.uk/airlink.htm

[galfert]

And ....Ecowitt is working on PM 2.5, 10, and CO2 that will be released soon. It is in testing now.

[vince]

On Monday, August 24, 2020 at 11:48:27 AM UTC-7, loonsailor wrote:

I need a replacement for my 25-year-old Vantage Pro (original, not +) and am considering either the Ecowitt 2551 or the 2553 or the Ambient equivalents.  

With a 25 history with Davis gear, why would you change vendors ?

I'll also add a WH41 and a WH43 (or ambient equivalents) ar quality sensors.

 

Easy - you can add a PurpleAir now and integrate it pretty easily into weewx.

1. Getting the air quality sensors set up is a stage-2 sort of project for me, and I understand that it’s not completely straightforward, because there is no dedicated PM2.5 field in the standard DB. 

Not true as of weewx v4 which has air quality elements in the new default bigger (ie, 'wview-extended') schema, so that is actually pretty straightforward now.

All comes down the usual price/size/look+feel/supportability things that only you can quantify.

It might be worth contacting Davis support to see if your existing console+logger can be used with a Vue or VP2 sensor suite.  You can get a Vue sensor suite very inexpensively if you look at places like Scaled Instruments and Scientific Sales.  Heck a Vue sensor suite is only $165 or so. A complete VP2 sensor suite is $320 or so.

[loonsailor]

Thanks for the input everyone.  The reason I was considering a different brand than Davis is connectivity.  Currently, my old Vantage console has an option added to it which provides a serial output, which goes to a Lantronix serial-ethernet server box (necessary because the station is too far from the weewx computer to allow for the console to plug into the computer directly).  My weewx.conf includes the following:

     type = ethernet

    # If the connection type is serial, a port must be specified:  

     port = 3001

    # If the connection type is ethernet, an IP Address/hostname is required:

    host = 192.168.198.202

It works fine, but the idea of a more "modern" station / console that has wifi built in seemed more appealing.  Also, I can't tell from the Davis web site if the connectivity I'm using now would still work identically with a new Vantage Pro 2, or if there's an option I'd need, or ???  How do most people here connect them?

Also, since I want to add air quality sensors, it was unclear to me whether that had to hook that in through my primary station, or if it could be entirely separate.  If I stay with Davis, then buy either a PurpleAir or a sensor+GW1000, is weewx fine with reading them both into the same db?

BTW, Ambient quoted me a 2-month wait for the ultrasonic system, and it sounds like Ecowitt won't sell me one in the US (they haven't confirmed that to me yet) so it looks like that's not an option.

[loonsailor]

After all the useful input, I just ordered a Vantage Pro 2 from Scaled Instruments.  They've got a great price for them right now.  Also, at his suggestion I ordered a WiFiLogger 2.  I'll post later about how that works out.

Thanks to all for the advice and wisdom.