Hey, great news! Congrats for your products. I really enjoy my current WF smart station.
I have a couple of questions. FYI, I live in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada (60 North):
I already have a Sky & Air station. Now that it is only solar with the Tempest, would it work well at this latitude with short days and long nights up north?
I purchased a separate shield for my Air module. What about the tempest. Will temperatures be accurate?
Are you considering these possible improvements in the futur:
temp sensor that could go to -40C
sensor that could also detect snowfall
By the way, if you need a field tester in the North, I am open to it.
Thanks so much for the reply! Iām definitely patient for this to happen, Iām just glad to hear that youāre actively working towards that eventual goal. When it does, Iāll buy two new full stations from you guys.
Battery: Tempest will likely use a new battery type which boasts a wider temperature operating range, faster charging (requiring less sunlight) and a longer lifetime (many more charge/discharge cycles).
Air temperature: Since we know the thermal capacitance of the device and a few other variables - temp, wind, & solar radiation - we can correct temperature readings to ambient air temps with a high degree of accuracy.
Operating range: Tempest will have the same temperature range as the AIR (-35 to 140 F).
Still no plans to detect or measure snowfall.
Please feel free to apply to be a field tester if you havenāt already!
Go wild - Iām sure many people would like that kind of thing if there arenāt any 3rd party integrations that do so already. The open platform with the various APIs is pretty cool to fiddle with to query for stuffā¦
Hi @meteowhitehorse As luck (or good design) would have itā¦in the lower latitudes with more daylight the vertical orientation of the panels work just fine. But in the upper latitudes, where the winter sun angles are low and the days are short, the vertically oriented panels are advantageous. that, and we totally over specād the panels ā just a handful of daylight hours will charge the onboard lithium titanate battery with enough juice for a few weeks even in total darkness.
We tested and tested and tested the incorporated solar shield on the new Tempest and it works quite well. Plus, in certain conditions such as full sun and low winds . ā since we measure the temp, the wind, the solar irradiation, and knwo the exact thermo dynamic properties of the physical device ā we can apply a mathematical formula to account for the sunās influence on temp.
Good ideas for the future. Temp sensor in Tempest still rated at -35C (although we saw many report down to -37C last winter.) . Snow measurement is a completely different science.
dont be suprised sacrificing quality assurance to maximize profit is not smart . nice one weatherflow its a marketing point next time you update your marketing documents etc there you have a valid sales pitchā¦
We still need to verify, as I had asked, if each unit is ācalibratedā vs tested for functionality. Thatās a significant difference. One checks that the unit is simply functioning and the other that it is properly calibrated. The latter is obviously more time consuming.
Either way, what WF is doing is highly unusual at this price point and should be congratulated.
as you say but be happy its checked thats good enough for me being overseas cant think of anything worse than doing a 120km round trip to customs clearance and getting home to find its faulty (not damaged wouldnt sign for it as we now get option to inspect parcels as all import parcels are opened and inspected anyway ) and if its calibrated then thats a bonus but previous units relied on certain calibration once installed either way nice move in distinguishing from similar priced competitive brands. calibration im sure they would answer or clarify if you asked ā¦
whilst that is not directly related to quality control prior to shipment but it highlights the frustration of being overseas ,he has probably 3-4 week wait for a replacement ive been there and felt the frustration numerous times with previous field test units so any reassurance be it quality control or customer support not being hampered by cost cutting to maximize profit as you mentioned previously builds a trust factor and customer satisfaction.
Or better the Tempest itself should transmit the raw data and data point for the ācalculated temperatureā as well the UDP broadcast should contain this both data points separately.
Sure, but then youād need it called ācorrected temperatureā and āraw temperatureā, or alternately provide all the data required for us to do our correction from āsolelyā the UDP data, but then we might be getting into proprietary algorithm territory.
Just hoping we donāt get into a ātemperatureCheckā thing like the after-the-fact rainCheck. That would be bad.
Iām also hoping the calculation is āliveā and that the reported temperature value in the app, API and UDP is the corrected value. For something like this that should be very achievable. The āuncorrected/rawā temperature value would not be very useful for an end user - maybe expose it in the API for the testers who are going to be looking at the details, but for most people it would just confuse matters.
For what it is worth, there is a lot of precedent in other industries for using a calculated value in place of a measured value, where the calculation is more accurate than the measurement. An example is tracking the temperature of PV modules in utility scale solar plants - we tend to have a few sensors measuring back-of-panel temperature, but their values fluctuate a lot depending on where and how they are mounted.
Sandia and NREL have studied the matter, and it turns out that a calculation of module temperature from irradiance, wind speed and a few thermal constants depending on the module construction results in a more accurate average module temperature than even having 10+ sensors of any accuracy or construction.
Wowā¦nice concept.
I have some ideas to throw into your basket while you are redesigning.
It looks like you are using the same pole mount. I suspect that it can be improved. You could consider the following:
The type of plastic and the thread shape cause the nut to bind sometimes so tight it feels like it will break trying to undo it. And an imprint on the nut to indicate which direction to turn it to tighten or loosen would help. Perhaps the nut could be made of a different material.
The rigid plastic allows all vibrations to be transferred upwards. Perhaps use a slightly less rigid plastic. If you wish to use the same design perhaps it could have a slightly larger internal diameter and you provide a silicone or rubber cap to slide over the pole prior to attaching the mount. Because currently I have no space to wrap some tape around the pole. And if my pole is not perfect it is difficult to screw the mount tight enough to be solid.
The bayonet clip is often too loose to feel secure. If it had another āsomethingā to prevent the instrument from turning like a pin or screw or clip. I have a Sky in a location the public has access to so if it was more difficult to remove would be better.
The rubber gasket between the mount and the instrument sometimes leaks. It may not cause a problem electrically? But the thickness and āmemoryā of the gasket affect the tightness of the bayonet, so it could be improved on what the Sky used.
The āNā embossed onto the Sky is difficult to see. And a āSā, āEā, āWā would also help because depending on where I look to reference North from my location I would like to be able to look from each direction.
Will the Tempest have a GPS, or its own location? Currently if we have several devices connecting to one hub they cant have their own locations. Yet I could place Skyās 10 miles apart using the same hub in the middle. And many of us wish to use our device attached to our mobile home or vehicle so an internal gps would help with both setup and variable locations. Especially your next version with its internal hub using mobile phone could benefit with a GPS.
Birds causing false rain usually also shade the light sensor. If you had 2 light sensors you could compare between them to guess if there is a bird causing the false rain. The second sensor might not be on the top. Your solar panels might indicate the amount of light so you could use them to compare.
For that point, I agree mostly.
I only asked for the raw data to be in the UDP data set. So everybody who is interested in it can evaluate that data point anybody else can ignore.
Hi @fishrman, Thanks fisherman, I did read that but I have a vibrating pole in Australia that I have done lots of testing and experimenting with. And I can not test if their proposed fix solves the vibration problem until the units are available for testing here. Currently testing is only available in USA. I hope their fix works but I will not believe it has solved the problem until I try it. Part of the issue has been the mount that easily transfers all highish frequency vibrations. And those people who generally have light wind may not know that their pole vibrates in very strong wind, and with the vanes on the tempest eddies in strong wind might induce more movement. So in a rare strong wind event suddenly false rain may occur. I would like to test for it prior to production but I have to wait and seeā¦
cheers Ian
