How to setup the Low Battery Alarm

[Francis]

I cannot believe I am having so much trouble setting up the lowBattery.py with alarm.py so I get an email when a battery is low!

I have searched this forum and the internet, but I cannot find instructions on exactly how to set this up.

I have been using weewx for many years. I have been using Linux for probably 25 years. I have LOTS of Raspberry Pis of all sorts checking this and that, I also program in Python a good bit.

I have a Davis Vantage Pro 2 with a Pi4 running weewx version 5.2.0-1 installed using the package manager.

I have the Wind Sensor on Station 3 and the ISS on Station 2.
Reading the alarm.py and lowBattery.py files I thought I had to put these files into this folder: /usr/share/weewx/user

This did not work with error: ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'user.lowBattery'

I reported this on the GitHub page as an issue when I should have reported here. I was not aware there was a group here. 

It was suggested I put the user folder in the same folder as the weewx.conf file which I have done.

I added this  report_services = weewx.engine.StdPrint, weewx.engine.StdReport, user.lowBattery.BatteryAlarm to the [Engine] section of the config file.

My alarm.py is the same as the example in the lowBattery.py file but obvoiusly I have changed the mailing info to suit my network.

I still get the error when I start weewx. Please see the attached file

Clearly I am not understanding where to place the two files in a system which used the Package Manager to install weewx.

Also what battery-flags should I include and where?

Also what value should I use to trigger the alarm?

[Tom Keffer]

With V5.0, the user folder has moved from /usr/share/weewx/user to /etc/weewx/bin/user. Note the 'bin' in the path. See the Upgrade Guide section New location for user directory. 

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[Francis]

OK, for anyone out there who is struggling with this, I have AT LAST got it working!

I think the documentation could be more helpful.

I have put the alarm.py and the lowBattery.py in the correct location now at /etc/weewx/bin/user

I have added the following to the weewx.conf file line beginning report_services in the [Engine] section:

report_services = weewx.engine.StdPrint, weewx.engine.StdReport, user.lowBattery.BatteryAlarm, user.alarm.MyAlarm
I have added the [Alarm] section like this with the alarm to be triggered at the top:

[Alarm]
    expression = "txBatteryStatus != 0"
    time_wait = 3600
    count_threshold = 10
    smtp_host = mail.mynet.net
    smtp_user = francis
    smtp_password = mypasswd
    from = fra...@mynet.net
    mailto = fra...@mynet.net
    subject = "Time to change one of the station batteries!"

It is setup according to the log, and I set the alarm ==0 so I could test getting an alarm, and I do get a message. 

As I understand it, any state that is non zero indicates a low battery.

There are several battery alarms:

'txBatteryStatus', 'windBatteryStatus', 'rainBatteryStatus', 'inTempBatteryStatus', 'outTempBatteryStatus'

Only the txBatteryStatus works as far as I can see

Hope this helps anyone like me who has a problem setting this up. It is easy once you know how....