My tempest started acting up by randomly losing sensors. The Wind, UV, and temp/humidity especially. It seemed to do worse when the weather was damp and required a switch off reset to recover it. The battery was also having a hard time staying charged. It was out of warranty and was replaced with the 1/2 price deal. Curious, and with nothing to lose, I continued to run it with an extra hub just to experiment with it. Suddenly the battery started charging normally and the random sensor failures turned into a consistent, always failure of the temp/humidity sensor. Everything else was working fine again, just no temp/humidity.
I took the unit apart from the bottom up. The deeply recessed torx screws were a problem but luckily I had a tool that would reach them. The unit is actually rather well constructed. When i reached the temperature/humidity sensor I found the problem. The leads of the sensor chip were green with corrosion and rotted away. I had seen this before on my Acurite stations and replaced the sensors in those. What happens is the corrosion covers the solder joints, bridges them and eventually rots them away. This causes shorts, noise on the data bus, and finally failure. It was, I suspect, also the cause of the random failures to read other sensors.
The sensor board is well designed, connects with a 4 conductor ribbon cable, and snaps into the unit. I contacted support and asked about buying this part but was told that it was not available. In follow-up email support was very nice but unable to sell me the part apparently.
The temp humidity sensor is exposed to the elements and in my experience is a consumable part on weather stations. This is why companies like Acurite and Davis sell replacement parts. Weatherflow Tempest should do this as well. I suspect rotting temp sensors are at the root of many user issues with these stations.
In the photo below, notice the green corrosion on the lower right corner of the chip. It is hard to capture in a photograph but obvious to the naked eye.
It is a SHT31 chip. I have no ability to replace the tiny chip on that board and trying to kludge a breakout board into the space would be somewhat difficult. I would, as I have with other manufacturers, gladly buy a reasonably priced replacement. It is a shame to discard this expensive station for lack of a $10.00 part.
indeed, I’ve had pressure sensor failures and temp/humidity failures. It’s a shame those parts can’t be replaced. Repairing stuff is so much better than just throwing it away.
They can be replaced if they can be obtained. The company designed the device quite well and it is repairable by competent users to the degree of battery and some sensors. Hopefully enough users will request that parts be made available for purchase at reasonable prices.
As a user and an investor in this company I’ll say that I like the product and the customer service but the lack of repair parts is a negative. I am having a hard time recommending the Tempest to others knowing that it can’t be fixed and must be replaced when it fails after the warranty expires.
From back in Jan 2021…on this community forum. . .someone posted an image of a Tempest “tear-down” and line-up of the components. Now all we have to do is determine which one is a pressure sensor. The temp / RH sensor appears to be sticking up on the left-most item of the middle row.
The temp/humidity sensor is located where you indicated. It is connected with a 4 conductor ribbon cable and easy to replace. The pressure sensor is a tiny surface mounted component located on the main top PC board in an area not coated with plastic. It would be very difficult to replace without skills and tools. From my experience I would recommend that anyone having sensor issues try disconnecting the temp, and light+rain sensors one at a time and in that order to see if other sensor failures clear. The sensors all operate on an I2C bus and if one is disrupting communications on that bus or causing low voltage it can make the other sensors give a false reading.
I have rolled my own replacement temperature & humidity sensor board. I bought a few cheap SHT31 sensor breakout boards and some 4 pin 0.5mm ribbon cable connectors. Using some magnet wire, I tediously soldered to the ribbon connector pins and connected them to the breakout board. I left the pullup resistors on the new board even though the original had none. Maybe 10K more will make no difference. I coated the whole thing with acrylic spray after masking the hole in the SHT31 chip. I then used E6000 glue to form a protective reinforcement for the delicate wiring. The pinout for the ribbon cable with the conductors exposed and facing you are: Vin SDA SCL Gnd. If you align it right with your board the Vin wire will cross the other three which are in the right order. Everything appears to be working great, and the sensors all report as good. I will run this a while and see how it goes. In the photo below the SHT31 chip is on the unseen side of the board (opposite the cable) and faces down when installed in the unit.
It has been running fine for over a week now. I have had zero failures of any sensors which pretty much tells me that the bad Temp/Humidity sensor was causing all the other problems.
I again encourage Tempest to make repair parts available. This is a kludge solution, but I think it proves that at least the consumable TH sensor can be replaced and extend the life of the stations.
Agree, but again this is yet another business decision with a profit/loss line in the sand to make. I’m guessing there’s no profit in it.
That said, very cool workaround and I’m sure lots of people would love to see a detailed howto someplace searchable for other folks good with soldering etc. who would take that next step to try to fix or enhance their own gear.
I could see this one as something somebody might try to get their T+H sensor out of the Tempest case and into a more shady and accurate location. That way you wouldn’t need to worry about the case heating up internally and affecting readings…
Well, I wonder if they make a profit on the half price replacements. I also wonder about the new right-to-repair laws that states like Cailfornia have passed. I also think that the ability to buy consumable repair parts like the sensors, batteries, and gaskets would be a selling point for new stations. The lifespan of the Tempest and the inability to do anything but replace it has sparked some negative feedback on Amazon and other platforms. Perhaps the P/L equation needs to add some goodwill and reputation factors into the mix.
As far as the detailed howto… I tried to describe the technical info in my post as best I could. That said, I have a website where I have presented some of my hardware and software tinkering including some with the Acurite stations. At some point, if time permits, I might do this one in a bit more detail. I did also replace the battery in this thing while I had it torn down. They are not too easy or inexpensive to source.
I’ll believe the right to repair stuff when everything Apple is compliant. Heck I couldn’t get a sensor replaced by a third-party on my Nissan because only the dealer can get the gear to program it. Cost me hundreds needlessly.
