Laser Sensor for Snow Depth Sensing

Hi

Found a spray can cap lid ,hope Will do the job :slight_smile:
please see updated images

mick


lasersnow2.jpg

Bonjour,
Merci pour cette info…

Serge

Richard from Porcupine Electronics has released a new piece of software for the LR4. It’s called LRTimelog and is available at:
http://www.porcupinelabs.com/s/Demo-Apps-Rev4.zip

The program must be run from the “command prompt” with the following syntax “lrtimelog 3600” 3600 being the interval between samplings in seconds, ie 3600 = 60 minutes. This software turns the laser off between samplings thus greatly extending the lifetime of the 414D as the laser has a lifetime of approximately 10,000 hours or about 2 1/2 years of 6 month operations. Also the CPU cycle usage with “LRTimelog” is much lower than with “LRSimple”.

Cheers

:smiley:

MikeyM

WD isn’t reading the values of my sensor this year. I updated to 1037r build 32 with no difference. The LRTimelog 3600 works fine and reads correctly. Dallas 1 wire works and reads correctly as well. Nothing happens in the snow input fields however. One other thing I noticed is that the sensor is always on even though it should only come on when taking a reading using the lrtimelog 3600. Any clues?

Rick

Rick

Make sure the you use LRDemo to put the laser sensor in the “continuous” mode before you run lrtimelog per Richard.

[color=green]"Mikey,
The “aiming” laser and the “measurement” laser are the same thing, so they should be off most of the time.

Try this… You can use the LRDemo app to make sure that the LR4 is set to continous mode and save the settings to the LR4. This will allow LrTimeLog to turn the laser on and off.
Richard"[/color]

Hope this helps Rick.

Cheers

:smiley:

MikeyM

Hey Mikey,

Just wondering how much of a difference you see in the measurements with the fluke/lr4? Mine is varying .3cm at times and this triggers a snowfall amount.

Bill

Hi Bill

I’m normally seeing .2 cm or less which won’t trigger the addition of snowfall. Right now the sensor is inside as I had a moisture problem with a new enclosure I was trying. Hope to get time to rectify that in the next couple of days and get it back outside.

Cheers

:smiley:

MikeyM

Mikey,

Is there a way to adjust the program so that it will not add snow when a .3cm reading is logged? I am also interested in what the “1 wire snow reference depth” check box in the “Daily Weather Report User Input” module is for.

Bill

the next update of WD will fix that reference snow setting not being used/set

Thanks Brian,

When I restarted WD after updating to build 306, my screen size became misbehaved. I am also waiting for it to snow tomorrow and see how the totals add up.

Bill

Brian,

Regarding my screen size. I was able to get everything into perspective except the numbers for “Data Received/Data Quality” and the Alarm button text.

Any thoughts?

Bill

there is no font selection for the number size for data received
(its a small font size by default as the number can get up to the millions)

latest WD update re that snow reference fix
http://www.weather-display.com/downloadfiles/weatherdisplaytest.zip

Richard from Porcupine Labs has updated the LRTimelog.exe program to produce only a single reading during it’s sampling. This eliminates the problem of the Dallas 1-wire reader program seeing multiple readings during the laser “ON” time.

http://www.porcupinelabs.com/lr4-sample-software

Again Richard has be very helpful updating the software to work better with WD. Great customer support! =D>

Cheers

:smiley:

MikeyM

I “second” MikeyM’s comment. Great customer support from Richard at Porcupine Labs. His modification to his “lrtimelog” program in conjunction with the Dallas 1-wire reader is most helpful and his efforts are most appreciated. :D/

Cheers

Jeff

I’ll third that :lol:. Richard helped me out with getting the right length cables after fluke changed their board size (my old one burned out). I am also running the new “lrtimelog” and that is slick, works great.

Brian,
I have a request if you get to it. I have my unit setup so that no snow reads slightly negative, because of the heave from the frost, otherwise I will get a false snow depth with certain conditions. So right now I have negative values showing on the daily reports. Could you set it up so that Weather Display will assume 0 for snow depth if we have a negative value?

Does anyone else have this same issue with their setup?

Regards,
-Dennis

I’m getting some help from other members who have taken the step to do the laser rangefinder as a snow depth sensor.

Is there a sweet spot for how far from the snowboard the sensor should be mounted? I know there is a minimal and maximal range. Logic says that you should be at least as far above the board as expected snow fall (sorry for being obvious) plus a bit so that the minimal range is not encountered.

Too far away and one might find that the function is degraded by blowing snow (notice these are all thought experiments as I investigate taking the step of ordering everything.

Also I wonder if one is too close that the ability of the laser to give accurate measurements may be infringed, that is as one gets near the minimal distance, does the % of error increase over the average error in the specifications? Sort of like humidity sensors that aren’t real good as one gets close to 100%, and better in the approx 50-80% range.

If one were to mount a very substantial fixed support at say 4 feet above the snowboard, is this a good range where the laser is giving as accurate results as can be expected, or would a slightly higher distance be better?

Lastly, as I read this info I have understood this to be the chain of events. Laser/LR4 combo is powered up. The new version of the Porcupine software is set to take readings every hour or so. Those values are read by the Porcupine’s LRTimeLog, with the snow sensor being plugged into a USB port (NOT INTO A 1-wire port) of it’s own. Then WD is running but uses (somehow) the 1-wire routine to read those data from the laser even though it is NOT a 1-wire device. Is my chain of reasoning to try to figure this out correct? Thanks for helping my understand what I’ll need to do or if it is doable in my sestting. The confusing part for me is that so much of WD seems to be set up for 1-wire but snow depth is not connected to 1-wire.

I’m sure I’ll get it with a little nudge, but my intuition is fading as I get older! Please see the attached .jpg as an example of how, to me, some essential info isn’t being understood by me.


miracle.jpg

Dale

Yes, that’s correct the the “1-wire reader” uses the data from the LR4/414D connected to a USB port. It’s really a nice, but slightly pricey project. Several of us have worked with Brian over the years to get this working. I originally start with ultrasonic sensors and some started with IR sensor and the LR3/411D came along followed by the LR4/414D project. You can check mine out at www.mikeymsweather.com/wxsnowgraph.php

It’s working Very well today.

If you need any more info let me know.

MikeyM

:slight_smile:

I hate to see all the trouble this large storm is producing but it answers a question I had. You are measuring snow depths every hour and I was thinking that with a big storm that might not be often enough, but your graph shows that hourly makes a nice picture.

By the way, what do you use to graph the snow depth? Is this from values stored in and/or exported by WD to some external graphing software?
Just curious.

Now I just need to have the fun-budget get to the point where I can get the LR4 and 414 to start playing.

Dale

Running lrdemo.exe this year brings up an error message The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect…
This happens on both win10 and win8.1 Google shows it’s a common problem but nothing I’ve tried has fixed the problem. Anyone else experienced this? Ideas?

Rick

Rick

Just a shot in the dark, but make sure you have AtUsbHid.dll in your “LR” subdirectory. I remember seeing this problem before, but my senior memory is foggy hee hee. I have LRDemo, LRTimelog and LRlog all running fine on multiple computer with Win 7 Pro 64. Just checked my laptop and that .dll file is only located in the “LR” subdirectory.

Hope that helps.

Also if you still have the problem fire off email to Richard at Porcupine Electronics. He’s normally very responsive. [email protected]