As the title of the post says I am looking to buy the solar panel accessory for the original weatherflow station.
I had seen it for sale not too long ago in the store (or so it seems), but it is no longer there.
My sudden change of heart is because my Sky suddenly died, voltage dropped off within a day, after almost 7 months on the dot using the recommended Lithium Energizer batteries.
I find this strange since I had originally used fairly cheep alkaline batteries and they lasted much longer, but if this is the rate of attrition for lithium batteries it definitely makes sense for me to get the solar panel kit.
The station has not been on power save mode, but is fairly close to the hub (and the air is still chugging along quite strong with batteries replaced at the same time). Maybe it was the crazy amount of rain we have gotten this month? Ha.
Thanks!
If your location never goes below freezing then in my opinion it is cheaper to use alkaline batteries. I have always used alkaline batteries without a problem. But I had a Sky run on both batteries and solar power accessory that began having voltage problems with both SPA and batteries. So it is possible that the Sky can develop a problem in itself that appears like it is your power supply. I have several Skys.
For the price of the solar power accessory compared to the alkaline batteries and the unknown if the problem is your Sky and because the voltage decay on alkaline gives you more awareness of the remaining life compared to the lithium cells which fall of a cliff. I suggest just use alkaline UNLESS it is in a tricky location to access.
cheers Ian
Thanks for the tip, are there any ways to diagnose the power supply if I take it down & open it up?
I live in New York so for 3 months or so it does see temps below freezing, but both the Weatherflow Sky and a previous weather sensor have been up there using alkaline batteries for at least 4 winters in total. So maybe that’s the way to go, but having to take it down every 6 months could be annoying.
I was thinking about what is in the solar power accessory & the current draw of the sky and realized that I could just make my own solar power accessory (especially since it seems as though some people have already modeled out the base on thingiverse, which I was expecting to be the hardest part). I have some solar panels & a couple charge control boards laying around - could even over size the panel…
I would think that all I would need are is the control board, some pogo pins to contact the Sky, a solar panel(s), & a battery (I’d have to figure out the sizing of that too). During the summer months there is plenty of sun, so I would assume that enough power to last through the winter would be a good place to start.
Thanks again for the tip! Hopefully there is a way to diagnose the power supply (but if it’s just a small PMIC I could see that as being problematic - I had an Air go bad & took apart the old one to see what it looked like. Not a whole lot going on in that guy!)
I just don’t want to have to buy a Tempest. My current Air is fine & I like having it in a separate unit. Assuming the hubs used are the same (which might not be the case as I remember reading that all the WF1 firmware & hardware stayed static once it went into production. And with the release of the tempest it was a chance to update both for both the sensor and hub…) it may be possible to keep the Air along with the tempest, but that is a lot of money to spend.
This is especially emphasized for me as I am making my own citizen scientist-style air sensor & am including a whole host of sensors, many of which are redundant with the WF. But the way I see it is that the rain sensor & especially the anemometer would add significant cost to the sensor I am making (had considered one of those optical rain sensors, RG-9 or something is the model number, but they are something like $90 with a cheaper one being available as well, but I like to go big or go home 
). Plus the whole data analysis performed by WeatherFlow is a huge plus. In particular the ‘smoothing’ & validation of data from the rain sensor (maybe this is something that is specifically needed for a haptic sensor, but I wouldn’t be surprised if an optical one has some ‘noise’ to it as well. As for a bucket style - I had one before & they can be a hassle to deal with as they collect lots of gunk over here + the accuracy has been suspect in the past. Even if I get a Davis one which I’ve looked into & would be easy to implement I still have to clean them).
From what I’ve seen ultrasonic anemometers are $$$ (I really dig the accuracy/precision, interval timing, & number of data points ultrasonic ones can provide). I believe Davis anemometers can provide a similar, perhaps greater, level of detail but that is a totally different story vs their rain gauge which is just a simple switch.
If anyone knows of any similar sensors that don’t cost over $300 I would be interested in that as well!