This is veering into the tangential but... My weather logging needs are modest - I'm usually looking for the weather 'at the moment' or for the last several days. Occasionally, rainfall for the month. My livelihood does not depend on my weather observations. If I miss weather data during a power outage, I'm not too distressed. Not missing it would be better but missing it is not a show-stopper for me.
I have used the RPi because it is a power miser, it is small and it is cheap enough to be bought new and 'dedicated' to a single purpose. My RPi Zero W uses between 50 and 100 mA at 5V. I chose WeeWX because it was free to play with and use, appeared well supported and was written in Python, a language I wanted to become more familiar with. My 'getting stuck on restarting' issues were annoying, not only because I missed data but because I had to restart things manually, remember (or look up again!) the command to clear the memory, etc. If it quit while I was away from home, it was 'dead' until I got back. The RTC (a cheap DS3231 module which required some desoldering/re-soldering to squeeze into the standard RPi Zero case) didn't do the trick. A few feeble attempts on my part at some coding didn't eliminate the issue either. I resorted to an APS UPS that is many times the size of the RPi and likely uses more power to maintain its battery than the RPi does to run. I don't know enough about the WeeWX code, the Davis firmware or the logging module to understand the technical details of this problem. The problem may be 'baked into' the Davis hardware/firmware. The WeeWX code may be trying to fix/avoid a problem it didn't create. However, if anyone ever does figure out a software solution to this thorny problem, I'll be happy to get rid of my giant UPS. And my hat will be off to you. (But I'll keep using my RTC - it is now soldered on to my RPi Zero!) David On Thu, 17 Oct 2019 at 10:28, vince <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thursday, October 17, 2019 at 5:41:32 AM UTC-7, Thomas Keffer wrote: >> >> Yes, that's the problem. >> You cannot expect high-quality data without investing in the hardware. >> You bought an expensive Davis station, why not spend the other $50 to >> protect the data? >> >> >> > Or alternately sell all your raspberry pi gear and pick up a good used > computer that 'has' a RTC in it (even a 4 year old mini pc would work) so > you get correct time through your periodic power outages. > > In short, buy a real computer. The pi are great (I have 'many') but you > are limited in what they can do without adding things to them. You have to > remove those limitations by either adding a realtime clock, or a ups (or > both), or buying a more capable computer if you want enterprise-level data > availability. > > The other thing to think about is 'does your computer power up when power > is restored'. That's not always goodness. I've fried a lot of > motherboards over the years in places where the power is very bouncy up and > down as power is restored to that location. UPS is almost certainly the > short term answer, plus a RTC if you want to stick with a pi. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the > Google Groups "weewx-user" group. > To unsubscribe from this topic, visit > https://groups.google.com/d/topic/weewx-user/hOj_mdhkl1E/unsubscribe. > To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to > [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/2674140d-f230-4451-a8b2-8961f3819a14%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/2674140d-f230-4451-a8b2-8961f3819a14%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/weewx-user/CAAMcdj24hUuXDjX6pz8h7jSA98ADk6kUnu08sv0dPJQ8jSs2tg%40mail.gmail.com.
