I've also noticed battery status and rxCheckPercent changing wildly at midnight.
I recall Luc Heijst once figured out this quirk, but now I can't find his post! On Sun, Jan 19, 2020 at 1:25 PM Greg Troxel <g...@lexort.com> wrote: > Following up with way more detail than probably any of you want, in case > it's useful to anyone: > > summary) > > old battery was low > > there seems to be some strange console behavior where txBatteryStatus > is sticky, resetting at midnight. > > console appears not to communicate with weewx when in setup mode > > going into setup mode and staying for a while seems to cause weewx to > exit because after delaying and retrying it still can't connect. > Maybe this should change, but I realize it's a tough call. > > archive records read from the logger (vs live) do not have battery > values. Reading the driver, this is obviously well known to the > author because loop packet battery values are inserted into normal > archive records. > > 0) old battery was at 2.09V. (new 3.23V). After messing with config > mode, console is no longer claiming low, and archive records no longer > say low. > > Remember to clean your solar panel once a year; mine was dirty. > > 1) LOOP packet contents and sticky txBatteryStatus > > For no good reason, I save the output of weewx onto files for a while, > so I have the recent LOOP data. Summarizing the data (other than > txBatteryStatus, the LOOP data is unremarkable): > > 2020-01-19 13:02:30 EST LOOP: 0 (had been 0 since midnight) > 2020-01-19 13:02:32 EST LOOP: become 1 > 2020-01-18 23:59:59 EST LOOP: still 1 > 2020-01-19 00:00:04 EST LOOP: became 0 > 2020-01-19 00:02:10 EST LOOP: became 1 > 2020-01-19 14:34:40 EST LOOP: still 1 > Unable to wake up console... sleeping > Unable to wake up console... retrying > [apparently weewx exited] > > I had replaced the battery around 1345. But loop packets showed 1 after > that. > > This is a 1-bit battery low indication in LOOP packets. Almost certainly > this is measured by the control module (Davis says SIM) on the outside > sensor package (Davis says ISS). It is normally 0. > > (I wonder how LOOP packets correspond to the on-air bits. Probably if > there is better data in the console it would be sent in LOOP.) > > Once txBatteryStatus goes to 1, it seems to stay there the rest of the > (local time) day. Then at midnight, it reverts to 0 (a loop packet with > 0), and on many days, it goes back to 1, around 0500 at first, and then > closer and closer to midnight. We had a warm spell on 11th and 12th > (high almost 70F, overnight low in between of 59 F )and on those days > there was no low battery indication. (This makes sense that the battery > would do better then.) Then, the ok times shrank and today, it went > back to 1 after only 2 minutes. > > Putting the console into setup (after replacing tx battery) seems to > cause the console to start sending 0 in loop packets. > > My theory is once the console gets a txBatteryStatus=low message from > the ISS, it sets the txBatteryStatus loop value to 1 and leaves it > there, and at midnight, it is cleared back to 0. > > This is not important to really understand, as almost always once you > get a battery low warning once, you really do need to change it. But it > is curious. > > 2) NULL battery values in database > > I found NULL values for battery values in my database, and these are in > archive records read from logger storage (vs live). From the source > code, archive packets do not have battery values, only loop packets, and > in normal operation the most recent loop values are spliced into the > archive records. On startup and reading saved archive records, this > can't happen. Nothing mysterious in the end -- just something I had no > idea about. > > 3) setup mode and weewx communication failure > > I put the console into setup to see if I could figure out anything > before venturing out with a new battery (I did not). I think this was > around 1300, and logs show: > > Jan 19 12:59:27 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP try #1; error: Expected to read > 99 chars; got 0 instead > Jan 19 12:59:31 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP try #2; error: Expected to read > 99 chars; got 0 instead > Jan 19 12:59:35 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP try #3; error: Expected to read > 99 chars; got 0 instead > Jan 19 12:59:39 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP try #4; error: Expected to read > 99 chars; got 0 instead > Jan 19 12:59:39 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP max tries (4) exceeded. > Jan 19 12:59:39 weewx[1951]: engine: Main loop exiting. Shutting engine > down. > Jan 19 12:59:39 weewx[1951]: engine: Shutting down StdReport thread > Jan 19 12:59:40 weewx[1951]: engine: Caught WeeWxIOError: Max tries > exceeded while getting LOOP data. > Jan 19 12:59:40 weewx[1951]: **** Waiting 60 seconds then retrying... > Jan 19 13:00:40 weewx[1951]: engine: retrying... > Jan 19 13:00:40 weewx[1951]: engine: Using configuration file > /usr/weewx/weewx.conf > Jan 19 13:00:40 weewx[1951]: engine: Loading station type Vantage > (weewx.drivers.vantage) > > and then after coming in from putting in the new battery: > > Jan 19 14:34:31 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP try #1; error: Expected to read > 99 chars; got 0 instead > Jan 19 14:34:35 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP try #2; error: Expected to read > 99 chars; got 0 instead > Jan 19 14:34:39 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP try #3; error: Expected to read > 99 chars; got 0 instead > Jan 19 14:34:43 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP try #4; error: Expected to read > 99 chars; got 0 instead > Jan 19 14:34:43 weewx[1951]: vantage: LOOP max tries (4) exceeded. > Jan 19 14:34:43 weewx[1951]: engine: Main loop exiting. Shutting engine > down. > Jan 19 14:34:43 weewx[1951]: engine: Shutting down StdReport thread > Jan 19 14:34:44 weewx[1951]: engine: Caught WeeWxIOError: Max tries > exceeded while getting LOOP data. > Jan 19 14:34:44 weewx[1951]: **** Waiting 60 seconds then retrying... > Jan 19 14:35:44 weewx[1951]: engine: retrying... > Jan 19 14:35:45 weewx[1951]: engine: Using configuration file > /usr/weewx/weewx.conf > Jan 19 14:35:45 weewx[1951]: engine: Loading station type Vantage > (weewx.drivers.vantage) > Jan 19 14:36:02 weewx[1951]: vantage: Unable to wake up console > Jan 19 14:36:02 weewx[1951]: engine: Import of driver failed: Unable to > wake up Vantage console (<class 'weewx.WakeupError'>) > Jan 19 14:36:03 weewx[1951]: engine: Unable to load driver: Unable to wake > up Vantage console > Jan 19 14:36:03 weewx[1951]: **** Exiting... > > It seems that when in setup mode, the logger is not talking to weewx. > Not shocking, but not mentioned at: > http://www.weewx.com/docs/hardware.htm#vantage_notes > although not clear where it fits or if it fits. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "weewx-user" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to weewx-user+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/rmia76jkuk2.fsf%40s1.lexort.com > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "weewx-user" group. 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