That's odd - LAN

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Weather station at far end of back garden (battery operated), reports wirelessly to its display in the house. Data then goes via USB to a RaspberyPi, which runs weather data collection and provides an HTML webpage, which can be accessed with the Rpi acting as the server, running on a wallwart.

outdoor (wireless) > indoor display (USB) > Rpi (5GHz)> wifi router

Rpi connects to the main router via 5Ghz port, which has all worked fine, apart from when the weather stations batteries die - then the webpages on the pi have still been available, but with no updated data.

As happened mid summer for the second time - obviously cheap batteries, because they normally last 18 months.

For the past few weeks, I have been regularly been unable to view the webpage, to get it back I have had to reboot the pi - after which I would regain access for an hour or so. I had it in mind that there might be an issue with the 5Ghz wifi link. Looking at the pi, its activity LED has continued to flash, even though there is no actual contact.

A few days ago the display for the weather station stopped updating data from the outdoor sensors, so obviously the batteries were dead yet again. Very wet and boggy out there, so I left it until today.

I fitted new batteries this morning and the 5Ghz connection to the pi has been rock solid ever since. Why would the weather station's outdoor unit's batteries dieing, cause the pi's 5Ghz wifi to come to a stop?

[NY]

"Harry Bloomfield"; "Esq." [e-mail]> wrote in message news:qpv0b5$jae$ [e-mail]...

I gather that everything is working at the moment, but when it next happens... Are you able to access the Pi directly (eg USB keyboard/mouse and HDMI monitor) or can you only access it remotely (eg VNC or SSH) via the LAN? If you can access it directly and not via the LAN, what happens if you disconnect and reconnect to the wifi network? Is the Pi working in all other respects - eg can a browser on the Pi access itself (eg localhost:<portnumber>) to see the weather data?

From outside, I presume all attempts to ping the Pi or to connect to it by VNC or SSH fail, in addition to accessing its weather web site.

Which Pi is it - 3B+ or 4?

As a matter of interest, does your weather station have rechargeable batteries (by photocells) or are they normal non-rechargeable batteries? My weather station (Davies Vantage Vue) has a 3 V non-rechargable battery but also has what I presume is a large capacitor that is kept charged by a photocell array. The battery lasts about 3 years, because I presume it's only used when there's not enough light to power the photocells. Unfortunately the info that the base station receives and sends to the Pi software over USB only reports OK/not OK for the battery state, with no indication of how close the 3 V battery is to failing (as % charged or terminal voltage).

I'm lucky that my remote sensor unit is on grass that's very close to a drive, so I can get at it even when there's been a lot of rain. At the moment (we moved house a few months ago) it's in a granite base that's designed for bird feeders on poles, but I really need to find somewhere to mount it onto the side of a building or to a brick pillar at the end of a garden wall, because my wife is hinting that the birds need feeding ;-) Also it needs to be a bit higher that the surrounding bushes so it gets realistic wind speed and direction readings.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Once up you should be able to ssh in, if not set it up so you can

Coincidence.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

NY has brought this to us :

Yes, still working fine.. Rpi 3B+

Station uses a pair of alkaline AA cells, though rather than climb up to swap batteries and because its a bit of a faff to restart it - I have wired it down to two 2x AA cell holders inside my garage in parallel. It should make it possible to swap one pair of cells at a time, to keep it running and it should run for much longer too.

I normally have no access to the pi, apart from through the LAN. I just set up the microSD card and ran it without a monitor, mouse or keyboard.

I have it mounted on a long mast, on the side of my garage. To the west there is a sheltering, but the wind is normally from the west, so its usually not far out.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

The Natural Philosopher was thinking very hard :

Such a long time since I last actually logged in, I will have to read up on it again..

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Are you sure that that in fact was what you were seeing, it might just be that corrupt or dodgy data was on the link surely? Brian