Station Notes

This section contains various HOWTOs, cook book style notes and resources on weather station related topics.

fit-PC Slim + Ubuntu + Wview + VP2

This station is a Davis Vantage Pro 2. It currently uses a second Wireless Weather Envoy console and Weatherlink USB running on Windows to send observations to CWOP.

These are some notes on an alternate configuration that is more efficient, reliable and can be expanded to map station data to other protocols such as MODBUS or BACnet for use in green building or home automation applications.

Installing Ubuntu 9.04 on a fit-PC Slim from a USB drive

Installing SSH and Webmin on Ubuntu 9.04 for remote access

Installing Wview on Ubuntu 9.04

Davis VP2 Plus -> GCC -> SCADA

** 2010-06-17 WORK IN PROGRESS **

Davis weather stations are relatively inexpensive, easy to install and maintain and, provide reasonably detailed and accurate data on local weather conditions. Even though their communication protocol is published, they are generally incompatible with contemporary building automation systems.

To bridge the gap I wrote a small daemon in C running under Ubuntu Linux. Initially the goal was to simply expose the station data to a SCADA historian. Shortly after I started, I began to realize the Linux host itself could provide a considerable amount of additional information that would be very useful downstream.

 

Rather than publish a finished application and attempt to find the time to support it, what follows are code fragments and notes on the basic steps and some caveats that make up a toolbox for others working along the same lines. If you're utterly stuck, feel free to contact me and I'll do my best to respond as time permits.

USB Serial Interface

Implementing the Davis Serial Protocol

Integrating FreeMODBUS

Decoding a Davis LOOP Packet

Integrating libnova for Improved Accuracy

Derived Meteorological Values

References