Weather Display with Envoy8X

[meteo.quimper]

that will be great is Weather Display can work withe the Davis instruments Envoy8X

[Snowi]

It's not working with it? This was new for me. I recently bought two Envoy8X consoles and I'm going to use them with WD so there definetely should be support for Envoy8X. I'm going to install one of them within two or three weeks, so would it be possible to add support for Envoy8X by then?

[Soggy]

The Envoy8x is completely different than the Envoy. An Envoy8x doesn't even work with weather link which is Davis' software for direct download. It is a lot to expect it to work with Weather Display since Davis has not made the protocol that the Envoy8x uses available to the public.

[Weather Display]

exactly...I cant perform miracles
this has been discussed on wxforum as well
the only possible way is to link to the SQL data base some how

[meteo.quimper]

I ask to Davis directly, they said:

Hi,
 
The serial communications information is not available for the 8X at this time. IT should be available before the end of the year.
 
Eric Nickl
Technical Support
Davis Instruments
510-732-7814
support@davisnet.com

[Weather Display]

HI
once they make that available then I should be able to add support OK

[prodata]

...the only possible way is to link to the SQL data base some how...

Well having the API will obviously clarify matters - hopefully it will be out before too long, but it was also promised for release by Easter 2011! So I wouldn't hold my breath.

But I'm not sure how much having the API will help. Although only the API documentation will show definitively, there's no sign that the 8x has any concept of a loop (real-time) record - certainly it isn't used by the Davis 8X/WDTU software.

So only the 8X equivalent of the archive record looks to be available. And all of the data in the 8X archive records will already be available in the SQL databases. So my view would be that there isn't much to be gained from waiting for the API document - you might just as well work with SQL database, which would probably be simpler to achieve as well.

There's another factor too: The 8X archive records must presumably be more substantially more complex than the standard archive record to work with. simply because of the sheer diversity of different sensor configurations that's possible with the 8X (eg up to 8 ISS units reporting to a single 8X unit). The SQL database structure already handles this complexity and so accessing the SQL database ought to really simplify working with the 8X data.

[Weather Display]

one way to add support to the SQL data base would be via someone running that, having that SQL data base opened up on a port (port forwarded, and a IP address) so that I could access it from here?
something like that...

[Soggy]

The WDTU does have a current readings tab that updates every 10 seconds. I don't know if the time holds true if there are more stations connected, but the 10 seconds update is consistent with the two stations to which I am connected. The data supplied is outside temp, outside humidity, wind speed, wind direction, wind speed 10 min., wind gust 10 min., wind direction of gust, dew point, heat index, THSWI, wind chill. daily rain, 15 min. rain, last 24 hour rain, rain rate, U.V., solar, and E.T.

[prodata]

one way to add support to the SQL data base would be via someone running that, having that SQL data base opened up on a port (port forwarded, and a IP address) so that I could access it from here?

Obviously it does depend on exactly what disposition of active components you're envisaging (which I'm just trying to phrase in a very general way). But if you take the simple scenario of WDTU running on a standard Windows PC local to the weather station then I don't see why you wouldn't have a version of WD that also runs on that same PC and that just hooks into the same database. After all, modern database systems ought to be designed to allow multiple simultaneous access to the database, so why not just use that fact.

Of course you have to remember that WDTU can be set up to use any one of Access, MySQL or SQL Server and so you'd presumably opt to target just one of those - MySQL being the obvious one. For WDTU to write to a MySQL database then AIUI (haven't tried this particular configuration) MySQL has to be installed and running on the PC in question. Ergo, you can assume that MySQL will be running.

Actually I think that hooking into the MySQL database in principle would be the easy part of this. What would be more tricky is working out how to handle all the different combinations of sensors (and non-Davis sensors) that the 8X allows. WDTU has a fairly elaborate set of - was it 13, do I recall when I last looked, but some such number - different tables that accommodate all the possible sensor and data combinations.

[Weather Display]

good that it can be set to update mysql, I can work with
WD is only set up to handle 1 set of windspeed, outdoor temperature,barometer
i.e from only 1 station
so would need to make it so that could set which sensors all belong to that one station to get the data from....?

[Soggy]

This is a picture of the data from the aforementioned current conditions from WDTU.