Your hardware experience (for running WeeWX, the service)

[michael.k...@gmx.at]

I'm curious what hardware you are running WeeWX on, and your experience with it. So, this is not about the weather station and the sensors, but the device which is running the service. The reason I ask this here, is because the issues I experienced with my hardware might be related to weewx and writing it's logs, and we all know the first rule for posting a question here :D

Since my first WeeWX installation in 2015, I've been using every generation of the RaspberryPi B, except for the 5th. But looking back it, has sometimes has been a royal PITA. It's not that I consider the Pi being bad at all, but I've been having issues with whatever storage I've been using. SD-Cards were a total disaster, USB flash drives were slightly better, USB attached SSDs, at least, lasted more than two years before being attached to the Pi killed them. The only type that didn't fail so far, was a NFS provided by a QNAP NAS, but this Kind of setup is a bit complex to maintain, and starting the NAS over, means quite a bit of downtime for the Pi also.

The Pi never was intended to be a server running 24/7, considering this, it's success in being used as such, is beyond imagination. Anyway, my experience for the Pi being a storage killer, doesn't seem to be uncommon. It's original intention was satisfied: I learned a lot about how not to lose data with unreliable hardware. Since 2015, my database isn't missing more than one archive value a day in average and the longest gap is about two hours back in early 2016, using the standard interval of 5 minutes.

What hardware are you using, what is your experience?

Can you suggest hardware with low power consumption as a requirement?

What about the newest generation, like Intel n100 based systems? 

[Nick Name]

Noobs Journey:

So probably not precisely what you are look for but.....

R.Pi 5 with weewx logging from Davis VP2.

Disastrous early attempts - but starting from scratch (New Pi (NVME rather than SD card) fresh installs of OS & package install of weewx plus support software (php, MariaDB etc))

Running 24/7 for 3 weeks now. Zero issues, much happy.

Slowly working my way through documentation and customisation.

Current "Ultimate Objectives" 

1) Figure out how to render wind data on polar display (graph?),

2) Skin (or custom web page)  reproducing console display of Davis unit,

Just to add - have previous experience with Oregon Scientific units and meteobridge + numerous other weather logging software.

Current impression is that the new whew based setup offers the best set of options yet ...... but more data to collect and work to do.

Regards.

Frank C.

[Nick Name]

Goddam auto correct!

[jterr...@gmail.com]

I installed my  Weewx in 2019 on a Raspberry Pi 3B+, fitted with an mSATA extension card (such as this one : https://geekworm.com/products/raspberry-pi-3-x850-v3-0-usb-3-0-msata-ssd-storage-expansion-board ) and a 120Gb mSATA SSD.

Zero issues, and still running today.

[Andy]

Had good luck with Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Tiny with 8GB ram.  It runs the free version of  VMware ESXi. Two weewx vm's, plex and home assistant run fine. USB pass through for the SDR dongle. I have a cold spare M700 Tiny and backup the vm's to a network share. Network share is Pine Quartz64 Model A with SATA card and two SSD's in software RAID 

• Good SD card
• Proper Power Supply
• Try to limit writes
• UPS  

Had to change a UPS battery, that is why the uptime is so low. 
root@raspberrypi2-0:~# uptime
 05:39:48 up 256 days,  4:43,  1 user,  load average: 0.44, 0.48, 0.49
root@raspberrypi3-1:~# uptime
 13:42:09 up 256 days,  4:45,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

root@raspberrypi:~# uptime
 13:42:56 up 343 days, 14:50,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

root@raspberrypi4-1:~# uptime
 05:43:49 up 44 days, 13:49,  1 user,  load average: 0.53, 0.38, 0.30

## This one boots off of a USB SSD, for what ever reason locks up

Andy

[Warren Gill]

I have been running weewx on a (now discontinued) Odroid HC2 https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-hc2 for several years now, connected to a Vantage Envoy, that collects data from the Vantage Pro . Since it can move its all but the initial uBoot code to SSD it's been super reliable. I would choose Odroid again... the XU4 uses eMMC, or a Lenovo Tiny PC and also use it for Home Assistant and other automation tasks.

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[Pierre-Yves]

My setup:

RPi4-2GB
Argon-one-M2 case (https://argon40.com/products/argon-one-m-2-case-for-raspberry-pi-4)
Liteon 16GB M.2 2242 SSD
RTC module integrated into the housing
Homemade ~ 2hrs UPS (5.2 V, 2.5 A)
Bresser WSX3001 (7in1), user.sdr driver
BME280 + AS3935 extensions connected to i2c port

It has been working without problems for 2 years.
A small SSD capacity (16 GB) makes easier regular full disk image backups.

Not sure that a UPS is essential since the Argon-one restarts automatically after a power outage (POs very infrequent and always of short duration).

PYB

[p q]

Raspberry pi 3b with nothing more than the standard SD card. Running with no problems for more than 6 years. I do have a 2hr battery backup so it's only been down less than once a year. 

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[vince]

If I was starting clean 'today', I would probably just throw $125 at it and get one of those little beelink boxes amazon sells and toss linux on it.

But to answer - currently on a 4GB pi4 to sd card for 2+ years with no issues.

Stability issues on a pi are almost always bad power supply these days.  I've never had a micro-sd fail on a pi3, 3+, 4, or pi5.  Never.   I did burn a 'lot' of big sd cards on the old modelB over the years but again that was related to either (a) cheapo cards or (b) cheapo power adaptors not on surge suppressors.  My one remaining modelB is still happily shooting my timelapse snaps for over a decade now.

I do make one change to the pi setups to protect the sd card.  I mount some filesystems as tmpfs so the sd can't be hammered by log writes by appending this to /etc/stab

#---- put logs and tmp dirs in ramdisk too ---
tmpfs           /tmp            tmpfs   defaults,nosuid,mode=0755,nodev,noatime   0       0
tmpfs           /var/log        tmpfs   defaults,nosuid,mode=0755,nodev,noatime   0       0
tmpfs           /var/tmp        tmpfs   defaults,nosuid,mode=0755,nodev,noatime   0       0

#---------------------------------------------

Yes - if I reboot I lose the system logs.  But I basically never reboot.

I might add that I do install rsyslog and the matching logrotate.d and rsyslog.d files from util/ to my v5 setup, so weewx logs to under /var/log/weewx in that tmpfs partition, so I just run debug=1 here because it's not going to touch the actual sd card.  Super stable.

[Graham Knights]

I've been running weewx on a RPi 3B+ for just over 5 years, but after a couple of other pi's died for various reasons (SD card being one of them), I've moved it to a debian install on a VM in a Windows 10 Pro machine (runs my automation server).  Hardware is a Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Tiny which I find perfect for running a couple of small linux VM's on it.  Low power, tiny, quiet, and versatile, and Lenovo hardware has been good to me over the years. Machines are cheap to find on ebay/amazon, probably less than a new Pi by the time you add all the parts.

[Gábor Szabados]

Shamefully, running a bit old version of WeeWX, from 2019, on a Raspberry Pi Zero W, which has Raspbian and mainly default settings WeeWX. The same SD card since. The Pi operates in an interceptor way, it creates a hotspot for the weather station which sends all information to WU, WeeWX with Interceptor intercepts it, meanwhile the Pi connects to the local network by Wifi as well. A bit over complicated, but it was before the FineOffset clones were offering a custom URL option in their firmware.

It was a minimum budget project, still runs without any issues. (Knock on wood.)

[Tom Keffer]

I'm with Vince. I believe the micro-SD cards are perfectly reliable. As an experiment I've been running WeeWX on an RPi B+ with an SD card for over 9 years. The key is a reliable power supply connected to a UPS. Webpage: https://www.threefools.org/weewx/status/index.html

I'm getting tired of waiting for it to break --- it's taking up too much space on my desk. If it doesn't break soon, I'll probably end the experiment.

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[michael.k...@gmx.at]

Interesting insights. I've always been using the official power supplies and SD-Cards and flash drives from major brands. And they always got me brand new cards, as the were under warranty. Also, we have super stable power supply here. Often years without power surge, the last black some years ago, and this only locally. Despite that, my devices are connected to a UPS since a while, and I had still issues.

[michael.k...@gmx.at]

I've just bought myself this: https://www.zotac.com/product/mini_pcs/zbox-ci337-nano-barebone and a data center SSD. Ask me in a year, or two :)

[Karen K]

michael.k...@gmx.at schrieb am Samstag, 24. Februar 2024 um 08:20:17 UTC+1:

Also, we have super stable power supply here. Often years without power surge, the last black some years ago, and this only locally. 

Off-topic-comment: That's interesting. The situation at our region is quite less stable. The voltage jumps up and down, and the frequency is decreasing actually.

[michael.k...@gmx.at]

Interesting, gotta monitor this, my PV-inverters provide all that data. 

[Cameron D]

Will get back on track eventually, but I was inspired by the mains stability plot to look at my data.  I have nearly 13 years of data from my PV system and did a histogram of the daily averages - so far just for frequency.

Curious - almost always below 50.0.  I can remember some years ago readiing that the mains  frequency was always manipulated to reach a daiily average of 50.000 Hz, in part  so that old style clocks would run accurately.

So, what's happening here?

It seems unlikely that my inverter gets such a simple measurement wrong, so is the correction no longer applied, or is it simply that the corrections are made when the power system  is at lowest load and my inverter is offline?

So as not to be totally off-thread, I'll mention my system. I have my weather devices connected directly to an  home server based on an Intel desktop, with a Raid-5 array. I built this in 2010 from three WD black drives and when they had accumulated 10 years of run-time I decided to retire them. I tossed up going to SSD, but decided on WD Reds. After building and copying the new array I then discovered they were the (unspecified) shingled drives. Still, they came with a 3-year warranty, so I thought I'd see how  they went.  All good when I tested nearing the 3  years, and 3 months later the first one collapsed dramatically. Out they went, to be replaced by SSDs. The reduced power consumption should more than make up for the cost difference - assuming they  last a reasonable time.

I don't recall any unexpected shutdowns since 2011, so never thought of using a UPS, but I acquired one recently, so thought I'd connect it  up.  I invoked the gods of irony upon myself, by deciding to first test out the Linux drivers for the UPS, before plugging the server  into the UPS power.  I'd run out of USB ports on the server, so unplugged the mouse that is  never used, plugged in  the USB cable to the UPS and the server instantly started rebooting.

[michael.k...@gmx.at]

Since the (public) power grid is part of the hardware your local weewx installation is running on, this is far from being off-topic. Yet it's kind of complicated to switch to another. My UPS kicked in a couple of times already, but I only connected it to the NAS.as long as I am at home I shoudn't run into any trobles, if there is a blackout, I have a 22kWh battery and my inverter has one socket that provides up to 3600W in case of an power outage. I am not sure if I'll invest in an automatic full-backup switch, with all the work to be done it will cost way more than €1000...

The new zbox is up and running in the meantime, it sure is a nice little computer.

[Karen K]

michael.k...@gmx.at schrieb am Donnerstag, 16. Mai 2024 um 15:46:28 UTC+2:

Since the (public) power grid is part of the hardware your local weewx installation is running on, this is far from being off-topic. 

There are 3 types of UPS available: off-line, stand-by, and on-line. The first one is off as long as grid power is available and starts when the grid power goes off. The second one is similar, but it is in stand-by. So it start faster than the first one. The on-line one separates the grid and the output entirely. They are connected by DC only. So this type can additionally filter surges etc. The output frequency for the on-line type only depends on the internal circuit, while for the off-line and stand-by type the output frequency is always the same as the grid frequency.

I use an on-line UPS and hope that will result in less damage in case of over-voltage, surges, and lightning strokes.

To compare to Cameron's histogram I did one myself, based on 5 minutes averages of the grid frequency (NOT the UPS output frequency):

This one has the peak at 50.00 Hz.

[michael.k...@gmx.at]

Gauß would connect to your power grid :D

[Gábor Szabados]

As I remember the EU specs is 50Hz +/-1%, so all those look good to me.

Regarding the battery and backup socket, I guess that must be a Fronius Gen24 Plus with a BYD battery, and the socket would be the PV Point. As just a note, if you don't know it yet, the PV Point socket and the Full Backup operates at 54Hz. It is not really advertised, but the point of it, to knock out any other Inverters as they would detect an out-of-spec line frequency and would shut down.

And if you consider the Enwitec backup box, which as you stated would be more than a 1000 with installation, there is a cheaper box also on the market by Keno the SH-GEN24-SZR, but still around 1000 without installation. 

I have one, but have not installed it yet, and felt the need recently when the operator did a 3+ hours maintenance and all the UPS depleted in the house.

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[Karen K]

Gábor Szabados schrieb am Freitag, 17. Mai 2024 um 14:46:55 UTC+2:

As I remember the EU specs is 50Hz +/-1%, so all those look good to me.

No. The tolerance is much smaller. +-0.02 Hz (0.04%) is the normal operation range. Up to +-0.2 Hz (0.4%) the European electicity administration uses standardized and automated processes to stabilize the frequency. Outside that range the situation is considered dangerous. Real people get involved. Below 49 Hz they start switching off load. Above 50.2 Hz private photovolatics inverters start reducing power output.

 

[Karen K]

michael.k...@gmx.at schrieb am Donnerstag, 16. Mai 2024 um 18:57:09 UTC+2:

Gauß would connect to your power grid :D

You know what Churchill said about statistics?

If I do the histogram with 3 decimals as Cameron did I get the maximum at 49.997 Hz. That is almost the same what Cameron got.

And if you consider those readings there is a drift of about 0.1 seconds per day in mains frequency. So an astronomer would laugh about that low accuracy. ;-)

[Gábor Szabados]

Where did you get those values from?

EN 50549-1:2019 far more permissive than you stated.

Here is Fronius' conformity certificate:

https://www.fronius.com/~/downloads/Solar%20Energy/Certificates/SE_CER_Conformity_EN50549_Sweden_Fronius_Inverters_EN.pdf

Or a link to the Hungarian EON's network quality statement (sorry, but this one is in Hungarian)

https://www.eon.hu/pestmegyeihalozat/tudnivalok/energiakozeli-informaciok/halozatuzemeltetes.html

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[Karen K]

Gábor Szabados schrieb am Freitag, 17. Mai 2024 um 16:51:21 UTC+2:

Where did you get those values from?

• https://www.netzfrequenz.info/aktuelle-netzfrequenz-full
  
• https://www.mainsfrequency.com
  
•  https://www.udo-leuschner.de/basiswissen/SB124-04.htm (german only)

Before 1990, within the eastern european grid, the tolerance was much higher. I don't remember the exact value, but in the GDR the mains frequency was always considerably below 50.0 Hz. In Germany we also have VDE standards. They sometimes differ from EN.

[michael.k...@gmx.at]

Yes, Gen24 with BYD HVM 22.1 and PV Point. I've actually never tested how the UPS (EATON Ellipse PRO 1200) likes the PV Point. I am aware of the Frequencies when in Backup mode. I don't know what full backup solution the electrician would offer, but it would cost €700 including work. The real problem that makes it so much more expensive, is that my distributor box is full, and the solution needs 17 more slots on a DIN rail. A lot of work and a a couple of hundreds for the hardware.