Incorrect Wind Direction follows Null data event

Looking at your station data from yesterday, with temps near freezing and recorded precip, it’s possible you had snow or frozen liquid on the plate where the wind is measured. Does this ever happen on clear windy days, or just when it’s cold rain/snow?

something very weird going on with your station, and next to what SLOman suspects (I confirm)

I see at several moments your battery voltage going wild. You use the SPA ?
I took this from your station and as you can see it is going jojo.
And at the same period there is no freezing temp but your air is dropping like 10° in 30 minutes

Can you please have a look at your RSSI values (push the green little bullet down right your page). Feel you have several issues combined

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Thanks for your help / pushed the green button / yes the solar panel is attached / rssi is -51 //

sky has been up for about 23 hours since the episode // both times this has happened were during heavy rain and wind conditions but only when the gust velocity reaches above about 35 mph // no problem on dry days but gusts usually are not as strong //

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water on plate can be responsible for these weird wind readings but not the battery

@wfsupport : can you please have a look at the raw data ? Something weird going on. Thanks

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Hi Eric / new developments from here / solar panel battery voltage gradually fell below 2.2 V and sky dropped off line / removed solar battery assembly and installed 8 lithium AA cells / sky instantly reconnected / I plan to reinstall outside this weekend ///

question: how do I get a replacement solar battery assembly?

thanks in advance //

Ken / k8gbs

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support via the website : http://got.wf/contact
support via mail : support@weatherflow.com

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I have a 3-month old Sky mounted on the solid metal fence (only ~2 foot height) with practically no vibrations possible. We have had several days with wind gusts 70-80 km/h. This morning it did the same thing as reported in the original post. It switched direction for 180 degrees and doubled the wind values. See attachment. The Sky reset obviously as the uptime is 1 minute or two when I checked. It also reported WIND_FAILED status.


For completness: I have another station in another (windy) location which reported the same thing many times before it finally failed.

I’m very sorry to say this but I finally quit with WF and will stay with the cups in the future… WF is just not reliable in relatively severe conditions.
WF never explained this phenomenon apart from “a possible water drops in the plates”, etc. We have no rain now.

At 7:30 AM it could be a condensed water drop ?
What’s your stations ID I would like to have a look to the other parameter.

At 60 km/h real wind gusts I don’t think there would be water drops from condensation.
https://smartweather.weatherflow.com/station/15259/grid

But it detected rain as will in the morning, is this a false detection either ?
Don’t you have an Air connected ?

No, just the Sky. No rain, just lots of false rain. Here is the photo of the installation. The inox tube goes all the way down to concrete. It’s solid stable.

couldn’t these steel pipes resonate with high winds going by ?

I don’t think so. Even if they do, it’s very shallow and 40 km/h (that’s when false rain starts) gusts shall not be causing this.
The origin of my report is the actual erroneous wind reading as reported by the OP and shown in my graph as well.

Hi @petercek,

The direction change can be a faulty Sky and can also be something like water in the gap. I do have a faulty Sky that virtually every day goes incorrect for a short period. Weatherflow replaced it due to determining it is a hardware issue. I continued testing it to see if it would be of any use to me but it just keeps doing it. Here is its chart and it is currently inside away from any wind: https://smartweather.weatherflow.com/station/4555/graph/44661/wind/3 .
It took me a while to prove the problem up on the pole but bringing it inside makes it clear to see.
If you sat it inside for a while if it does the wild wind thing then you have evidence that it is faulty and contact support.

As for the vibrations false rain issue I did several tests to determine that movement is not a problem. The Sky can be moved and waved around while holding the pole as much as you can move it and it will not record false rain. BUT while perfectly still inside if I tap the pole quickly repeatedly with a plastic ball point pen it records heavy rain. This test taught me that the vibrations of concern are like sound travelling along the pipe. So my vibration reducing mounts were designed to allow movement but stop sounds travelling through the mount.
I see on that fence a loosely tied cable that could move in the wind and be swinging tapping the rail like a rope on a flag pole or a rope down a yacht mast.
I suggest placing rubber under the pole and around all the mounting points to reduce sound vibrations. And if the Sky has any movement within the mount or solar accessory tape it solid. And if you can see anything that might move against the railing try to make it secure.

best of luck
cheers Ian :slight_smile:

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Thank you, @iladyman , very useful explanation. One of the issues is I have it mounted in a location which I can not access every day or anytime I want. I decided to leave it there as is.

What makes me upset is this is the second Sky I own that does the wild wind thing. I would guess they’re both from initial production run even if this Sky in question is “new”. I’m from EU and maybe WF produced our versions just once.
Anyway, I decided not to open another support ticket.

Off-topic but referring to your other explanation: moving to my other setup, I do have lots of false rain also there. A month ago I started thinking that sound “vibration” could be triggering false rain. I planned to put rubber or other material around the pole but am not sure how will rubber behave on longterm. Do you have a solution or a photo to share? Maybe not in this topic not to mislead the thread.
Thanks

Hi @petercek,

This is where I posted my experiments and findings regarding the false rain due to vibrations. This particular post shows the rubber mount broke down under our severe Australian sun.
https://community.tempest.earth/t/rain-sensor-and-vibrations/1345/170

There are other ideas on the thread.
cheers Ian :slight_smile:

After one year in operation my Sky started showing this issue again. Conditions are very reproducible; after a longer period of stronger wind (few days about 50-70 km/h), the Sky resets and swaps the direction and reports unreal wind speed. I have a DVP2 anemometer just beside the Sky to prove there are no “micro bursts”, etc.
One plot shows average windspeed, the other shows wind gusts.


This is my third Sky I think showing exactly the same behaviour. I conclude this as a design and quality issue.
We haven’t had rain for days but just blue skies. Due to strong wind I also reject the theory of droplets or other subjects in the hole.

This is the station link:

Reported rain is false due to pole vibration.

Not seeking for technical support anymore but just want to share my experience with others.

Seems like someone found something similar early on when they were testing one mounted on their car. I wonder if the issue with yours is similar. Maybe sustained wind over a certain speed overflows something in the firmware or circuitry.

That said, however, your SKY is showing a wind sensor failure.

Maybe @WFsupport will send you a replacement. I recommend you open a support ticket so at least they are aware of the problem.

This actually is a replacement already ( I think the 2nd). The whole logistics procedure is difficult (pay the customs, etc). They are/were aware of this but somehow ignored or try to avoid confirming the real cause.
Yes, the sensor status turns to “Failed” occasionally.
I know @WFstaff is willing to help but it seems the hardware is not capable to handle a bit more “serious” weather on a longer term.

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The wind has calmed down and readings are back to normal.
I would also suspect if power supply may be causing this. Batteries are OK (one or two months old), working in power-save mode. Maybe strong wind readings consume more power which causes the Sky to reboot. After boot up it maybe starts some “initial calibration” and goes crazy since it reads strong gusts?
Other thing to think about is that strong wind gusts move the batteries a little and this causes intermittent power loss; after boot up, the “initial calibration” doesn’t really expect such strong wind and goes a little crazy.

Some diagnostics and advise from @WFstaff would be welcome. I imagine this scenario shall be relatively easy to reproduce in the wind tunnel and remote power supply (wires to the external battery through a switch).