you may consider the power usage of the equipment used to make your station data online
a normal stational PC uses from 150 to 250 Watt depending on speeds and screen on/off
this is ALOT of money to pay pr year
a notebook running 1-2GHz with screen off can use as little as 10-20 Watt
now that is still some money but can be accepted by most people
this PC size can also handle web cams and all FTP uploadings.
my ADSL router uses about 5 Watt
and an 8 port 10/100 network switch 3-5 Watt
a Davis Vantage Pro2 wired with UV and Solar and IP used 1.8 Watt and 2.2 Watt with light on
You don’t need to use a 150 to 250 Watt PC 24x7 for a weather station. Something like a basic 2 GHz P4 with graphics on board will give you all the power you need and run about 40 - 80 watts. I use a recycled 15 watt HP mini PC for one of my stations, Fit-PC slim would be even better but those cost real money :lol:
A recycled solution can be very economical all round - and kind on manufacturing resources etc. too.
It would be a long time before the overall cost of running an “if you are thowing that away, I can find a use for it” notebook caught up with the overall cost of buying and then running a Fit-PC.
exactly, not much power usage is needed to give you a free pc over 1-2 years !
and then after that you earn money…
to toss away your power hungry PC and get into tiny note books that is the way to go in the long run,
please send a link to that small and less power hungry PC you mention ?
it is not that well known over here I guess,
under 10 W is really impressive, we managed to get an eeePC type 901 with atom CPU
down to 10W running XP and weatherlink with screen and all other things not needed disabled.
the PC I use now is a 2GHz celeron using only 16-17 Watt with screen off.
the problem is I can not manage to get the darn harddrive to stop clicking,
I have installed all programs on a fast USB stick, and I have also selected swap and virtual drive
on the same super stick, but still XP just loves to get files and stuff all over the harddisk so it just newer sleeps
even when enabled. I have ordered one of the cheap compact flash converters to 2.5 inch harddrive
so I will install XP on that, making this old PC into a pure SSD system, this should save power and even speed up
my execution time, since flash is so much faster over an old lame 2.5" drive.
by the way any P4 based C is a no go !!
they suck up tons of power and have no power saving step down features,
also the 40-80 watt you mention for a 2GHz PC, is not true, I bet your wattmeter is defective
or you are just guessing, try to measure it please… now tou see what I mean…
I found the slim fit pc, wow cool and cheap too,
a real must have for this kind of application, and it runs on 12V too, nice,
I now have all other things for my station also running on 12V so the idea about adding a 12V battery and a solar
panel wil really make sense, only thing that ignorers me is the cost of the solar panel is so high
and its payback time is like 10 years… I prefer a more short time payback to go green,
and I think most other people love to go green if possible, short time.
well i think it is with PC’s the more power they can suck,
the more speed and fast graphics they can do,
offcourse new technologi comes all the time, and gets more and more speed/power efficient.
I have checked all my PC’s and each ATX powersupply when connected and PC is off = 5-10Watt idle power.
my P4 is an old generation 3GHz CPU I have two harddrives 160 G each, and a big and mean ATI gfx card
all measurements done with screen on another outlet
PC all running, data on both disc and gfx moving 200 Watt
PC cpu idle, no data on disc and no gfx moving 168 Watt
PC cpu idle, no data on disc and gfx screen off 142 Watt
PC cpu idle, discs powersave and gfx screen off 136 Watt.
This PC dont run my weatherstation, but is on 8-10hrs a day, so offcourse I think it is important to see
if I can cut its usage a bit or even just purchase a new pc with similar speed and gfx performance
and then do the math how long time it takes for a break even on power saved
my weather PC is only 16-17 Watt so no need to fumble more arround with that one.
Here in Denmark we pay 0.21 euro cent pr kW/hr power (all included) same as 0.30 $ at the moment.
what is the power cost at other locatons all taxes and stuff included ?
oh my, so electrial power is much different priced in the US ?
11.5 cents per KWH here.
this is in texas, it is the total cost all included, and same price all day ?
$0.15 to $0.44 per KWH depending how much you use.
this is in california, I assume the price is also all taxes and shuch included,
but your price change depending on total need pr day or month or year ?
0.30 $ here in Danmark is all day, flat rate, no matter what usage I have,
and the price is all taxes and stuff included, (OT info: Denmark is a tiny contry 5mill people
our electrical grid is 230 V AC and 50Hz is it time phase controlled so 50 Hz clocks
run super accurate)
but your price change depending on total need pr day or month or year ?
Monthly. There is a base monthly kwh usage (depends on climate zone) and you get those kwh for the lowest price. kwh in excess of the base are charged at progressively higher rates up to the $0.44. This is Pacific Gas and Electric which serves much of Northern California, there are other large and many small utilities in the state.
(OT info: Denmark is a tiny contry 5mill people our electrical grid is 230 V AC and 50Hz is it time phase controlled so 50 Hz clocks
run super accurate)
Isn't Denmark part of the ENTSOE? If so how can you have your own frequency standards?
I believe that 230V 50Hz is the standard right across Europe (presumably your “ENTSOE”?).
The UK changed (at least nominally) from 240V 50Hz to 230V 50Hz in 1995 - though I think if you asked most folk what mains voltage was you’d still get 240 as answer. :lol:
It is very much like the ‘PC Engines GmbH, ALIX.1C’, it’s a custom version of it. The CPU is a AMD Geode LX. I’m running WinXP Home, sp3 w/Keyboard, Mouse and ASUS monitor and a Davis USB Weather Envoy. Software is: SoftWx StartWatch, VirtualVP, VPLive, Davis WeatherLink v5.8.3 and I use TightVNC for remote admin. Check it out at SoftWx.com. The system is fully IBM-PC compatible and will run Linux if need be. The system I’m running has a WiFi modem to connect to the DSL modem when me LAN is down or it can connect via it’s ethernet port to the LAN. It’s sweet. Check it out.
Yes, the power system is basically regulated by frequency (more load, frequency drops, less load, frequency increases) and entsoe coordinates all that in europe, so I don’t understand the claim that Denmark has some special super accurate line frequency set up.
