Vaisala WXT510/20/30 data stream parsing interface

Brian:
Your hint at what the output stream from the Vaisala WXT520 station should look like made it an easy set up.

I’m not sure if you have or had one, but while it is possible to program it a bit with just the serial interface, the majority and most quickly done changes are through a short cable that plugs into a special port for this.

If I configure the onboard firmware to send out the expected data stream, all is well.

Getting the unit down from the mount and hooked up to the programming station is a wee bit of a pain.

Yet, there are some ‘engineering data’ from the Vaisala that are fun to see and occasionally very important.

I’m not sure if the front end code in WD that asks for a data stream, then grabs it and furnishes it to the main WD program is very precise, or has some ability to parse a bit. What I mean is that the data stream to make it work is setup OK and runs. But what if I append (just adding more items to send out on the RS or SDI interface port), will that confuse the parsing routine? Does it expect a fixed number and non-variable number of data items, or if there are more on the tail end, does the parsing software just ignore those and toss them?

I’m thinking that like Davis and Rainwise that has some telemetry that is of interest, at times so does Vailsala’s instrument.

I cannot flip back and forth between two ‘modes’ when it is on the tower. But IF the data stream contained these extra few items, I could shut down WD, open a terminal emulator, look at a few strings output from the Vaisala to get these numbers, and then stop the terminal program and restart WD. Or as an alternative, just open the debug window and see what is coming down and grab a screen shot of that.

Can you recall how you wrote the interface? Fixed number of values in defined known order, or dynamic analysis of the string and assigned the value associated with the Alpha designater with an expected value such as speed, direction, etc?

Dale

it should not worry it

Thanks. It is hard to test with bringing it down, changing some parameters and then testing.

You saved me a bunch of time, to say the least. I of course will test, but I’ll proceed with some plans thanks to your nice response.
Dale