Over the last year or so I have carried out very little maintenance on the station. Well it caught up with me in the last couple of weeks. The station completely failed. After finding some time when it was not raining or snowing, I have managed to carry out the repairs.
The first issue was with the solar sensor, which I had thought was producing very odd results. The sensor failed so badly that it took down the data-bus that sends the sensor data back to the PC. Luckily I had brought a spare sensor earlier in the year. I have improved the mounting of the sensors in the housing. Before I used screws with insulated washers, this time I have used nylon standoffs. This should allow the flow of air more easily around the sensor, stopping any dampness causing any issues. Both the solar/temperature and the humidity sensor have now had this modification.
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The fan that is fitted to the housing, had also stopped working, this was a simple fix, one of the wires that are connected on the back of the fan had come adrift, (rotted though). I reconnected it and this time put plenty of silicon compound around it, this should stop any moisture getting to it.
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I also tidied up the wiring as this has always been a bit of a mess.
Once these repairs were completed I carried out some testing, which looked fine. The only oddity was that the wind speed sensor was not picking up anything, however there was very very little wind that day. About two days later I noticed that the wind speed sensor was still not reporting any wind, however now it was very windy! I had noticed that the cable that goes to the wind instrument was looking very unwell. It was cracked! I brought this cable as a UV protected cable, well it certainly was not, in fact I have normal patch cables being used, and they are fine, considering some of them have been in place for 5 years, where as the special UV protected cable had only been up for 2 years.
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