[moolight0551]

As it has been raining heavily in Sydney Australia today I am getting some rainfall numbers displayed on my Rx unit. I have a couple of questions.

1. My rain bucket from Sparkfun says it tips every .0111 inch or .2794mm of rain. Is this amount the same as expected by the Fine Offset rain gauges and is the calibration multiplier setting in Cumulus of 1.500 correct.. Maybe mine is one, I don't know.

2. The Rx TFT display is showing Rain 52.50 mm/m2 and 7.11 Rain F. mm/mm2of rain and now 60.6 and 21.60 respectively. What are these numbers?

3. After running for around 4 hours Cumulus reports not having any data read and the error light starts flashing. After restarting Cumulus it seems OK again and this has been repeated a few times during the day. Any ideas on what is causing this.(I know this is not the Cumulus forum!)

[werk_ag]

As it has been raining heavily in Sydney Australia today I am getting some rainfall numbers displayed on my Rx unit. I have a couple of questions.

1. My rain bucket from Sparkfun says it tips every .0111 inch or .2794mm of rain. Is this amount the same as expected by the Fine Offset rain gauges and is the calibration multiplier setting in Cumulus of 1.500 correct.. Maybe mine is one, I don't know.

You can use that multiplier for you rain gauge.

2. The Rx TFT display is showing Rain 52.50 mm/m2 and 7.11 Rain F. mm/mm2of rain and now 60.6 and 21.60 respectively. What are these numbers?

The first value is the total rain since the beginning of your meteorological day. The default value is 0 (midnight) but as you live in AU, you may want to change it to 9 (9AM) in RX user config settings (don't forget to set it also on Cumulus)
The second value represents the actual RainFall Rate, it increases or decreases with the rain intensity. You may search on google about the concept of Rainfall rate.

3. After running for around 4 hours Cumulus reports not having any data read and the error light starts flashing. After restarting Cumulus it seems OK again and this has been repeated a few times during the day. Any ideas on what is causing this.(I know this is not the Cumulus forum!)

Please give more info about your Cumulus config, anyway...
Have you set the correct com port on Cumulus?
What happens just after you start Cumulus? Does your RX unit reboot alone?
If it will reboot, that is because you don't have VP1 switch at ON (close) position. It must be ON, before starting Cumulus.
After a reset or boot, wait at least two minutes, before attempt to start Cumulus, or the connection will fail.

[Brett]

(it *really* is raining here in Sydney isn't it ! Lots of wind too !!)

[moolight0551]

(it *really* is raining here in Sydney isn't it ! Lots of wind too !!)

Yes a real test for the sensors. I am getting some really big variations in the wind speed and the watching the rain figures is really interesting. I live down in a valley, can't imagine what the true wind speed figures must be somewhere that is open and ideal for measuring the wind gusts.

---

As it has been raining heavily in Sydney Australia today I am getting some rainfall numbers displayed on my Rx unit. I have a couple of questions.

1. My rain bucket from Sparkfun says it tips every .0111 inch or .2794mm of rain. Is this amount the same as expected by the Fine Offset rain gauges and is the calibration multiplier setting in Cumulus of 1.500 correct.. Maybe mine is one, I don't know.

You can use that multiplier for you rain gauge.

2. The Rx TFT display is showing Rain 52.50 mm/m2 and 7.11 Rain F. mm/mm2of rain and now 60.6 and 21.60 respectively. What are these numbers?

The first value is the total rain since the beginning of your meteorological day. The default value is 0 (midnight) but as you live in AU, you may want to change it to 9 (9AM) in RX user config settings (don't forget to set it also on Cumulus)
The second value represents the actual RainFall Rate, it increases or decreases with the rain intensity. You may search on google about the concept of Rainfall rate.

3. After running for around 4 hours Cumulus reports not having any data read and the error light starts flashing. After restarting Cumulus it seems OK again and this has been repeated a few times during the day. Any ideas on what is causing this.(I know this is not the Cumulus forum!)

Please give more info about your Cumulus config, anyway...
Have you set the correct com port on Cumulus?
What happens just after you start Cumulus? Does your RX unit reboot alone?
If it will reboot, that is because you don't have VP1 switch at ON (close) position. It must be ON, before starting Cumulus.
After a reset or boot, wait at least two minutes, before attempt to start Cumulus, or the connection will fail.

Thanks for your information.
I really do need to do a bit more reading on how weather experts measure some of these parameters. Our rain in Australia is just reported as mm but I guess this really means mm/square metres.

As for Cumulus the COM ports is OK, the Nano does not reset when I restart Cumulus as VP1 is on. After operating for some time(Hours) Cumulus error indicator starts flashing and I notice the Last Data Read time has stopped incrementing. I will try to add screenshots of the Cumulus settings but not confident I will get this right.
   
   

[werk_ag]

Everything seems fine with your Cumulus configuration (change logs roll over to 9am, as it is what is used in AU)

I have misunderstood your first post about this matter, and I thought that Cumulus has never done a connection.
If Cumulus lost connection after some time, and your RX units is still running, then there is a problem in USB communication.
This may seems strange but try to change the Arduino COM port from COM3 to any other available. If it don't solve, if possible check if this lost of connection still happens with another computer?

Just for curiosity, what is the USB chipset used by your Arduino? FTDI or the new chinese one CH340?

[moolight0551]

Everything seems fine with your Cumulus configuration (change logs roll over to 9am, as it is what is used in AU)

I have misunderstood your first post about this matter, and I thought that Cumulus has never done a connection.
If Cumulus lost connection after some time, and your RX units is still running, then there is a problem in USB communication.
This may seems strange but try to change the Arduino COM port from COM3 to any other available. If it don't solve, if possible check if this lost of connection still happens with another computer?

Just for curiosity, what is the USB chipset used by your Arduino? FTDI or the new chinese one CH340?

It is the Chinese CH340. I will have a look at device manager next time it happens and see if the COM port looks OK.

[werk_ag]

It is the Chinese CH340. I will have a look at device manager next time it happens and see if the COM port looks OK.

I'm also using those Chinese CH340, and they work well, but they have a strange behaviour, or at least it happens to me. I can't have two connected on the same PC at the same time. After you install one of them, all the others are allocated to the same COM port.

Maybe your USB cable is faulty, or is too long.

[AllyCat]

Hi,

Our rain in Australia is just reported as mm but I guess this really means mm/square metres.

No, mm is correct (it should be the same for any area), but you can consider 1 mm as one litre per square metre if you wish.

However, a typical rain gauge (or an automatic "tipping bucket" type) generally "magnifies" the value by collecting the rain over a larger area than is used to measure the depth. For example it may have a "funnel" with an area of 100 sq cms but a collection tube (or bucket) only a cm or two across. Thus the "depth" of collected water needs to be multiplied by the ratio of the areas.

@Werk_AG: Thanks for that info on the CH340. I often use them, but wasn't aware of the potential issue with multiple devices.

Cheers, Alan.

[moolight0551]

It is the Chinese CH340. I will have a look at device manager next time it happens and see if the COM port looks OK.

Funny, ever since I posted this subject, Cumulus has been working perfectly with not a lockup. It's another mystery.

Now I should think about getting my data online. Will try and find some guides on how to do this in Cumulus.

[uncle_bob]

Now I should think about getting my data online. Will try and find some guides on how to do this in Cumulus.

The easiest option to do so is to sign up on the Weather underground then punch in the details in Cumulus. Give me a shout if you get stuck.