Electricians, Plumbers, House Painters, Roof Contractors And More
DIY and Pro Help With Your Home Projects
 Once you have assembled the parts according to the manufacturers directions, you need to install them around your house. The location of each part of the system is important. There are basically 5 main components for a wireless system installation. Each part of the system should be located for optimum performance. 1. Base Display I chose to purchase a Oregon Scientific WMR-918 wireless weather station with serial communication. I had a similar unit before but it did not have serial communication so I bought the upgraded unit from Costco for about $200. The serial communication allows you to communicate with a PC that can upload your weather station information to sites like wunderground. If you upload to wunderground, you can get over 50 back links to the website of your choice. (If you are a web developer, you know how valuable that can be). The downside is that the base station must be in my office next to my PC. I have a second base station (from my original system) in my master bedroom closet. This allows me to check the outside temp, humidity, rain level and wind before selecting my cloths for the day. There is no problem having multiple base stations since they receive data but do not transmit data. 2. Rain Sensor The rain sensor should be installed in an area where the solar panel can point to the south at about 60-80 degrees. This will get the best charge on the batteries. The rain collection bucket should be as far from any overhead obstacles as possible. Trees and buildings can block the rain when the wind is blowing. This will give false results. The range on the wireless transmitter is over 200 feet so it can be installed at the edge of most yards. Install it where it is easy to maintain since it requires routine check for any junk that may land inside the collector. The unit used a simple see-saw mechanism with a small trap on either end to measure water so it must be installed level and not allowed to move if you want good results. 3. Temperature Sensor The temperature and humidly sensor should also have it solar panel pointed south with a 60-80 degree angle for maximum charging. The sensor has the opposite requirements, it should be totally out of the sun. Even though it has a shield, it will read high if the sun hits it directly. Finding a location where there is direct sun for the solar panel and no sun for the sensor can be difficult. I placed mine under my deck with the solar panel on the front of my deck pointing south. Since it is under the deck, it stays dry. This should increase the accuracy also since water temperatures can be different from air temperature and evaporating water has a cooling effect. 4. Wind Sensor The wind sensor is the most location sensitive of the sensors. Any upwind blockage will change the wind speed and result in errors. To minimize this problem, it is best to get the wind sensor as high as possible. Since wind can come from any direction and any tall objects will change the wind speed, the best spot for accuracy is the worst spot for safety. As you can see in the picture, my wind sensor is about 40 feet in the air with a clear view to the mountains. I was on my roof for over an hour making sure the angles were correct for accurate wind direction. For safety reasons, I don?t recommend getting on top of your roof. It can be very slippery on some roofs and you can easily break your neck if you fall. I mounted a plastic pole (plastic closet rod from Home Depot) to an existing vent pipe in my roof. I hope that the plastic pole will reduce the chance of a lightning strike. I used screws to attach the pole to the pipe and then added cable ties to reinforce it. I have seen gust over 60 mile per hour and the sensor is still there. Another option is to buy something that will stick under one of the singles and allow the mounting of a 1-1/4 inch pipe. 5. Software The final installation was the software on my computer. The weather station did not come with software. I chose freewx.net software based on the recommendation of a friend. The software is free and very simple to setup. It detects the stations and stays in the tray with very few problems. I occasionally have a serial port conflict at startup and sometimes I run out or resources when running other heavy applications. Overall, I am very happy with wunderground and freewx. I really think that the back links have helped my site and it is great to be able to go one line and check the history of my weather stations. Good luck with your installation. The information on this site is provided for reference only and is provided "AS IS", "AS AVAILABLE" with no guarantee of accuracy. Information comes with no warranties, express or implied. Use the information from this site at your own risk. See our disclaimer for more details. |