Solar in a Jar Setup Guide

Hi,

As my solar in jar works very fine, I got some requests to explain my settings. So this is my personal help guide to those who aren’t getting it working…

First of all: my sensor in a Jar:

There are a few things that I played with to get it right:

  • Put it at least 1.5m above the ground, otherwise the thermal mass of the ground will keep the sensor too warm when there come clouds for the sun.
  • Leave it a bit open on the bottom. I create a fully closed Jar in the beginning, but because of that the jar wasn’t cooling down quick enough
  • Use a small Jar, otherwise the thermal mass will keep it warm. It also warms up a lot quicker. Try to use thin glass.
  • Try to put it in a location with maximum sunshine.
  • Contrary to the last bullet: try to put it out of the wind, this will influence the temperatuur when the Jar is open on the bottom

Then I had to make a few settings in Weather Display. To find out what settings you need, you first have to observe what are the difference between the temperature and the sun-temperature during the day. Try 1.1 as a minimum (you don’t want 0,1 difference to create a 10% sunshine reading or something like that) and try the maximum difference at noon as a maximum. This of course depends on your siting and location on Mother Planet.

Explanation Solar1.PNG:
Solar sensor in use: select 1 if you use Channel 2
Select 1.1 and your personal observed max. (for me it’s 10.0)
Select 0 offset. (also when you have your own temperature sensor offsetted a few tens of degrees.
Untick: I have an adapted temphum sensor, this is for people who adapt their temphum sensor with a wired solar unit or something like that.
Tick: Override estimated solar from UV, because you want to estimate solar from your new temp-sensor

Explanation to Solar2.PNG:
There is not so much you really need to do on this page, but it makes your readings much better if you do.
Change the icon-settings to whatever you want. It starts counting sunshine hours above the Sunny-Icon setting.
Tick all the Icon options (you have to setup METAR for that as well).
Enable finetune times around sunrise/set because early morning and late evening the readings are not very good. It will change.
Untick: apply for sun hours as well, because in the case WD recognizes sunshine hours within the finetune times, it already will start counting and that is what you want.
Averaging: this one is important: change it back to 1 minute. Why? Because your sun-temperature-sensor will actually average it already because it needs approx. 10 minutes to warm up/cool down from. So you don’t need this anymore.

Explanation to Solar3.PNG
Calculate your personal max solar by your coordinates.
I also added a shadow offset in the morning. I actually don’t have an offset, but early morning it reacts slowly to sunshine. When I don’t use it, on a clear day it starts counting sunshine hours at 9 am (sunrise: 5.30). When I use 50% increase, it starts counting sunshine hours at 7.30 am which is much better.

After that, change some graph options if you want to display it.

That’s it, hope it will help!

Jan


Many thanks for that Jan, I see you have worked hard on it and I am sure it will help others who have the same problem as I had, I am certainly going to print it out and put it in my album.

Many thanks again,

Geoff =D> =D> =D>

Hi
I have build temp-sensor in jar just like described in this post, but I receive in current raw readings only -100w/m2. I am try everything but no luck. I am using OS WMR200 with UVN800 too. Any idea what shoul be wrong. The max radiation for my lat/long shows 299 w/m2.
CS Marco

Hm, Maybe question for i think Niko!
It is so, if I in station setup under WMR200 check sensor Nr 1 (default is 0) for WMR200 then I received data form temp sensor in jar just correct. I am received data 130w m2 and 56% but this affect in wx.html to show temp to -100 degrees on my web page. It is just like rewerse. I don t know, it is maybe some problem in software. If I unchecked sensor nr 0 under WMR200 back than temperature on webpage jump to correct value but temp sensor in jar is not working.

Grrr.

Marco

the temp in a jar uses an extra temp sensor
is that extra temp sensor data showing in WD (under view, extra temp)
do not change the main outdoor temp sensor number

I,ll have to check that, but strange like I post below, if I change in station setup to sensor nr. 1 Solar in JAr is working… and yes I have extra temp sensor in use,

Hi I Have checked but hm strange I can not see any extra temp or hum data under view extra temp.
Is thesre on the program something I have tick or untick?

Marco

I am solved this issue. Now everything working just fine with extra temp sensor in jar.