100% solar reading under completey cloudy sky.

Yes sorry I got engrossed in the 100% value thing and forgot the settings just above. It is ages since I looked at that control panel. Anyway hope it clears up your issues.

Stuart

Fingers crossed, Stuart! :slight_smile:

Hate to butt in here, but may I ask if that % setting in the panel you reference ONLY adjust the incoming values if you have a Davis Vantage Pro system for solar, or will it tweak any value that WD is ingesting?

I have my lines running a bit high and it would be nice to slightly lower them. I just don’t want to screw stuff up, not that my weather logs are NASA quality or anything.

What I don’t know is how WD works at getting data in. If it treats all incoming data regardless of what station is sending it, then it would seem logical that this tweaks all stations’ solar numbers.

Dale I have only ever had a Davis solar but my understanding is that the only thing on that control panel which is Davis specific is the adjustment factor. Hope Brian will correct me if I’m wrong.

Stuart

its not davis specific

Nah!.. It still acts crazy 15 minutes after sunrise, so I can only put it down to a faulty sensor.

I’ve turned it off in Control Panel and removed it from WDL.

Thanks for all the help.

John

John does your sensor read anything at night? When one failed on me it was reading non-zero at night time.

Also what actual w/m

Stuart, at night it said 0%, and stayed that way until it would go crazy next morning.

I can’t remember what the w/m2 reading this morning, but somehow it is still producing the gif in webfiles (see attachment).

As you can see, all the data is ‘normal’.

I’ll upload this gif tomorrow while it is acting crazy.

John


customscreen12.gif

Looking at those w/m

Hey Stuart, you’re starting to lose me!:slight_smile:

Here’s the current reading now, and I’ll upload same, plus the gif tomorrow morning.

John


cr.JPG

That will be fine John, the only extra I need is the exact time the screenshot was taken. We may be able to progress a bit with what’s happening. Can you also post a screenshot of the ‘Max Solar Time of Day/Time Zone/Lat/Lon Fudge offset’ tab on the solar control panel please.

Stuart

Here’s that screenshot, Stuart.


And here’s the solar max.


Fine… that just leaves the Current Readings tab screenshot when it goes mad in the morning.

Stuart

Stuart: Is it possible there’s a time zone or other problem here that’s causing the calculated value to be out of sync? Isn’t there a way to plot the calculated max on the graph with the actual?

Stuart, here are the two screenshots… time taken was seconds after it shot up to 100%.

Note the time on computer clock.

John


OK well as expected this falls into the category of YYGT (Yes You Get That) :wink: Seriously though a reading of 5 and a max of 3 and you get greater than 100%. This happens to most folks whether or not they have the solar sensor shaded or not. The design of a Davis solar sensor is one which measures global solar not direct, that is it reads the whole sky including any reflections etc. This makes life difficult when you are estimating the sunshine as a % from actual w/m

Stuart, thank you for your time, trouble, and advice. I have followed your suggestions to the letter, using your suggested settings, and I have modified my lat/lon as per Google Earth.

Thanks again!

John


latlon.JPG

No problem. Don’t forget to check the lat/long on the solar control panel as well.

Stuart

Wilco!!! :smiley: