Inspeed Vortex & HB Anemometer Control Board odd behaviour when it rains?

And I now see that the capacitor goes to pin 5 (‘signal ground’) rather than ‘across’ to the other leg of the anemometer pair. Thank you.

Thank you.

There’s an even chance it might be dry enough this afternoon to try out one or two variations.

Maybe I should start by moving the existing capacitor from +5 to GND, seeing what difference that makes, then looking at changing the capacitor, and if necessary resistor?

I realize that this approach is unlikely to work well because it assumes that the input is actively switching between ground (0) and 5 volts charging and discharging the cap. In reality it is switching between 5 volts and an open circuit so it’s likely the cap will not be fully discharged between hits of 5 volts and the voltage at the counter input will rise to some undefined and non-zero value. Darn, the sort of problem that can be resolved in minutes hands-on with an oscilloscope :frowning:

There are pull-downs on the board so it is switching between +5v and ground on the controller board. When the reed switch in the anemometer is open then the counter input is pulled to ground through a 1 Meg resistor, then when the reed switch closes the counter input is pulled to +5v.

Eric

Aha, there’s skyewright’s 1 Hz theory validated, 1 uF + 1 meg = 1 Second. In that case 1 to 5 nF should do it nicely.

Assuming the 5v isn’t parasitic, intutively I would be inclined to connect 5v through a resistor to counter in, and have the reed from counter in to ground.

BINGO!
I believe we have a result.

In a gap between showers I changed the wiring over so that the cap is now between Counter A and GND.
I also swapped the electrolytic 1uF for a polyester film 100nF, and bumped the resistor (still between anemometer and counter A) up from 1K ohm to 10K ohm to compensate.

Now in wind conditions that are variable but just strong enough to keep everything turning, the Vortex is giving an average over an hour that is just a touch higher than the OS WMR928 3m below it (i.e. a 7m) on the same mast. That seems to me like a good indicator of stability. :smiley:

The Vortex is giving substantially better max gusts, but that is not unexpected (indeed it’s what I hoped for), not least because the Vortex is measuring over 3 seconds and the WMR928 over 14 seconds. The highest gust for the hour is 13.6mph for the vortex and 8.1 mph for the WMR928. I think that if that could in anyway be attributed to false counts (as opposed to better position and shorter evaluation time) then the false count would also affect the average, which isn’t happening.

Naturally I’ll keep monitoring, but I think we have something useful. :smiley: :smiley:

Thanks to all, but most especially to niko who came up with the solution.

Excellent news…let’s hope you have it sorted :slight_smile:

My fingers are crossed :slight_smile:

Continues to look positive.
We have very light winds, occasionally flat calm. 3 anemometers are being recorded. The WMR200 is at ~5.5m on a separate mast about 40 m from the Vortex/WMR928. At different times all combinations have been seen to be stopped or spinning, but WMR200 has lowest start up (around 2mph), WMR928 next lowest (around 3mph) and the Vortex startup seems usually to be slightly higher than the WMR928.

Here are the average wind & max gust from midnight to ~0900

                WMR928         Vortex             WMR200
Ave Wind Speed  0.3 mph W     0.1 mph NNE    0.7 mph ENE
Max Gust Speed  5.4 mph ESE   7.4 mph ESE    6.5 mph SSE
Max Gust Time     08:37           08:41              09:00

The relative average speeds ‘feel’ reasonable for the observed relative startups in these very light airs.
Yesterday evening in more consistent winds the averages were very similar, with the Vortex maintaining a similar gust advantage.

Those figures look good :)…shame that we (you) are in a pretty slack period for winds for quite a few days… :wink:

And have continued in similar vein. Both the Vortex and WMR928 think the max gust for the day so far was at 1259 (15.7 mph and 10.5 mph respectively).

At least I’m not trying to run a wind farm! :wink: :lol:

Knowing how the ‘old’ 5.5m mast can jolt when it takes a big gust, I’m wondering how the 10m will react. I think it is well guyed (4 way (N,S,E & W) guys at 3m and 6m to anchors 6m from the mast, 3 way (~SW, ~NNW & ~ESE) guys at 8m and 9.7m to anchors 9m from the mast) but the proof of the pudding, etc…

Hi Skyewright,
I’m interested that you seem to be seeing higher start up speeds on your Vortex than I do.
Mine turns in a barely perceptable breeze and I see readings down to 1.2 KM/h which is 0.75 MPH.
I’m using the new HB wind board.
Very very happy with results and Vortex and E-Vane. The combination of these instruments and the HB 1-wire board works brilliantly.
w0mbat

Me too. “On the bench” with a fan I’m sure I observed it starting at around 0.5 - 1mph, and literally moments ago I glanced up (it’s visible from where I sit) and saw it start at a really lazy pace (very easy to count rotations), with the WMR928 stationary below it.

However, more often over the last week I’ve seen the WMR928 rotating slowly and the Vortex stationary, but the WMR928 seems to require at least 2-3mph to get it going? Looking at the relative behaviour of the two OS anemometers (both lower and one some 40m away in a less favourable position for the current northerlies) I almost wonder if in these very light condition they are just catching ‘ground effects’ caused by buildings and local slopes, effects that the better positioned vortex is free from?

Very happy here too. :smiley:

I’ve come to the conclusion that my “gust” speeds are a bit too high at present, but that’s me not the hardware; I realised there was a problem in how I was assessing time spans in the custom code (I normally program in Windows, not Linux). I’ve now found a better time function. I still expect/hope the Vortex will spot “better” gusts than the OS anemometers, but 50-60% seems a bit too much! :lol:

With the new code then once the average is above ~4-5mph the Vortex is reporting averages slightly above the OS anemometers, and gusts of up to around 25-30% higher. This seems consistent with relative positioning and the expected ‘advantage’ of 3 second gust measurement over 14 second gust measurement (I recall reading a topic where someone did a empirical analysis comparing gust speeds from various time spans).

By observation the Vortex cups do start in speeds as low as ~1mph (i.e. >2 seconds per rotation!), but nonetheless it seems that when the 5 minute average is below about 4-5mph, the OS anemometers (especially the WMR200) record more wind than the Vortex. It seems possible that this is due to ‘local factors’, e.g. what little air movement there is having to go ‘around’ the house and that effect being spotted by the lower anemometers? Intruiguing, but hey, it’s probably really the windier days that I’m more interested in. :wink:

Two graphs attached, one showing the max gust in each 5 minutes for the last 24 hours for all 3 anemometers, the other showing the 5 minute averages for the same period.


hi everybody

I’ve setup HB Anemometer Control Board ,

it working data is looking good I’ve also attached the surge protector I made some time ago

this is not affecting the data :smiley:

mick

http://www.weather-above.com/Anemometer%20Controller%20Board.html

After well over a month of smooth running, including the first storm of the season the day, before I had odd behaviour between 0315 and 0615 yesterday morning resulting in unwarranted gusts of up to 105mph!

During that period there were no single second reading that were “out of range”, and few one second step changes that weren’t “reasonable in some circumstances” and thus hard to filter logically as spikes.

Some sort of electrical interference at a frequency & duration that hadn’t cropped up so obviously before seems the almost certain cause.

Taking a close look at the data the, 105 mph gust could have been spotted logically quite easily (a 50mph acceleration between one second and the next!), but just before that there was another peak well over 90mph that was much more subtle, with each step in the chain quite reasonable in itself.

The more I look at the data the more it looks as though hardware (perhaps plus a little extra spike logic) is the best angle of attack.

I’m assuming that the interference is coming in short bursts of highish frequency rather than being sustained lower frequency.

The current low pass filter clips at about 160 Hz in theory (equivalent to 400 mph if sustained, i.e. well beyond any real weather), but that assumes no extra resistance or (probably harder to guarantee?) capacitance in the circuit. Without a scope (and ideally a signal generator?) it’s hard to be certain exactly what it is really clipping at and (aside from reporting invalid data) the last thing I want to have is a system that starts clipping real gusts.

So here’s what I have in mind. Maybe someone with more idea of electronics than I could comment on the plan?

If the weekend is dry (as looks possible) I hope to try adjusting the filter so that the theoretical clip is within what is actually happening and see how theory compares to reality. Then I can maybe raise the limit again to a value that is tighter, but still with a safety margin for real weather.

e.g.
100K and 0.1uF in theory clips at 15.9Hz (~40mph)
200K and 0.1uF in theory clips at 8Hz (20mph)
470K and 0.1uF in theory clips at 3.4Hz (~8.5mph)

If one (or hopefully more) of those seem to give a reasonable match between theory and practice, then maybe a couple of 100K and a 4K7 in series might be a decent “as low as reasonable without getting too close to potentially real data” filter?

24K7 & and 0.1uF in theory clips at 65.5Hz (~160mph!)

How’s that sound as a plan?

PS. So what chance a flat calm at the weekend, eh? :wink:

I managed a test:

470K and 0.1uF in theory clips at 3.4Hz (~8.5mph). I practice with the wind gusting to around 15mph at the time that clipped 1 second gust readings to 11mph.

The anemometer is now back in service running with a 10K resistor & 220nF capacitor, a combination that theoretically clips at slightly less than half the original frequency, and which hopefully will be enough to avoid future problems.

There is probably scope for further reduction (the current threshold equates to a 180mph gust!) but that would involve either series or parallel resistors so probably best left for a soldered version rather than the connector block arrangement that is currently in use!

Rats! :frowning:

First decent winds since the change over and the current combination is clipping at around 16Hz in practice, well below the theoretical 72Hz. So, any rotation above the high 30’s in mph is getting clipped. The result is apparent “1 minute” wind speeds of around 5mph during a gale!

Edit: I’ve just added an image to illustrate the positions of the capacitor and resistor in the circuit. I’ve also shown the 1 M ohm restor that Eric mentioned. I’m not at all clear how that might be affecting matters…


LowPass.png

A rather old topic this but I have just experienced the same problem.
OWS with Hobby Boards ACM/control board has been working fine indoors during testing for months.
Installed it two days ago in stable weather and it has been ticking over and reporting about 5m/s winds which is about right.
Today with little to no increase in wind speed it started raining.
From as far as i can tell exactly at that point onwards it has been reporting 40-80m/s
I have looked at the raw counter values and they are indeed going up at the speed indicated.

Did David W ever resolve his problem?
Has anyone else experienced this and resolved the issue?

thanks

could be a ground loop problem?