Homemade Night Sky Cloud detector

Under Setup > Advanced > Boltwood tab;

Does that section still work? I have ‘0.7’ for Overcast and ‘1.8’ for Clear sky which worked a long time ago, it was cloudy/overcast most of the night and my setup was still saying Clear night. Just curious if anyone still uses that section.

which version/build?

I’m currently using WD 10.37S55, I recently changed the jar the sensor is in and the sensor. Went to a slightly bigger jar, but still using the same type of sensor. Real time graphs shows a large gap during the daytime hours between the temp in a jar and the outdoor temps. Thinking it might be a seal problem on the jar if that section works for others at night time.

do you actually have a boltwood sensor though?
(as otherwise you should be using the night time cloud sensor (home made) )

I don’t have the Boltwood, I’m using the night time cloud sensor which is the home made one.

if you could zip and email me your settings I will investigate as spare time permits

If it’s any help, I’ve set up a home made night cloud sensor using a Davis temp sensor in a jar today.

It’s on test overnight to see what readings I get from it but I’ve initially set it up at 0.1 for overcast and 2.1 for clear sky. As it got dark this evening it went from “Overcast Night”, “Mostly Cloudy Night” to “Cloudy Night” and then back to “Overcast Night”. So the description is working on my version of WD, which is 10.37S Build 53.

This is a learning curve for me while I figure it out, so I’m not sure what’s correct yet.
At the time of typing, the outside air temp is 10.3

Sent my settings a few minutes ago, should be there shortly to your ‘info’ email address.

[quote author=Budgie link=topic=65363.msg525938#msg525938 date=1502668328]
If it’s any help, I’ve set up a home made night cloud sensor using a Davis temp sensor in a jar today.

It’s on test overnight to see what readings I get from it but I’ve initially set it up at 0.1 for overcast and 2.1 for clear sky. As it got dark this evening it went from “Overcast Night”, “Mostly Cloudy Night” to “Cloudy Night” and then back to “Overcast Night”. So the description is working on my version of WD, which is 10.37S Build 53.

This is a learning curve for me while I figure it out, so I’m not sure what’s correct yet.
At the time of typing, the outside air temp is 10.3

You probably will have to re-do the numbers with a larger jar as there’s more volume, so the temp range will be different.

I’m starting with those numbers to see what I get and to wait for a clear night so I can see the actual difference between the cloud sensor & the outside temp. That’ll give me the basic range to start from. :wink:

I have tested here with Zalmor settings and its working OK
(i.e I made it for testing where I could set the extra temperature 4 setting (and connected to my Davis station) and set the local time to night time

setting that extra temp sensor to close to the current outdoor temperature, the overcast icon showed OK
setting it to a value this is lower, and less than the threshold difference set to for clear sky , the clear sky icon was show ok

note that there is an average reading in use so it take a little while (minute) for the change

you can set to show debug info (in the misc setup) and then under view, debug info, the 2 values are shown (outdoor temperature and the extra temp sensor value)

Budgie, i found it easier to calibrate the night cloud temp sensor to the outside temp and then go from there. Zalmor, Budgie is correct, it will need calibrating again for the larger housing, when ever you change something on the night cloud or solar in a jar for that matter, you must always calibrate it again.

Where about do I set to show this info,( Misc > Program ) is it in the title bar/windows title bar your talking about?

Its Overcast outside tonight even though the local airport metar is showing clear skies. I have the WD screen and logs using Fahrenheit.

Currently I have the following from the real-time screen
64.2 F Outside temp = 17.9 C
62 F Temp in jar = 16.7 C

   above difference is 1.2 C, I enter in 1.5 C in the Overcast section portion and 3.9 C in for Clear skies. Waited a 3-5 minutes and its still showing up as 'Clear night'

setup, advanced/misc
tick , log the raw data
I would set the lower threshold as less
i,e start at 1.1

OK, got that working. The home cloud compare shows 13.7 - 31.7

WD Out side temp 56.7 F = 13.8 C
WD Temp in Jar 53.9 F = 12.2 C
WeatherLink shows 54 F on station #4 locally at that time

Not sure where WD is getting the 31.7 though? :-k

the first number is the outdoor temperature
the second number is the temperature reading (C) of sensor used for the night time cloud reading

so that looks like a problem

The ‘home cloud compare’ only shows up in the debug view during the night hours right?
Did a check around 7:00 pm and the ‘home cloud compare’ line didn’t show up in the program debug info window at that time yet.
Sunset tonight is 8:00 pm

Think I found the problem, I had it set as Extra temp 4. For some reason I was thinking WD was asking for the Station # which was 4 according to WeatherLink, changed the Extra Temp to 1. #-o
Old age mode is now off :roll: Home cloud compare is much more reasonable now. It is now showing ‘home cloud compare 11.1 10.6’ which I can work with.