[LawrenceB]

Hello there,

I'm Lawrence Baker, a penultimate year engineering student at Churchill College, Cambridge University, specialising in manufacturing. My course has a 3rd year project (imaginatively named the Major Project) which is in exercise in product development. We work in small groups and the project can be anything from inventing something completely novel to improving a certain aspect of an existing product in great detail.

My team's project is looking at developing a new weather station aimed at the higher end of the 'amateur' market, those who don't want to stretch to a MetPak, but want something more substantial than an Oregon Scientific. We are aiming for a final end user price point of around £500. Currently the biggest player in the market is the Davis Vantage Pro2, which certainly offers all of the parameters you might want at a competitive price, though we feel that there is room for another product here, specifically incorporating ultrasonics and the advantages that they bring.
We're just starting out at the moment and are in the process of trying to collect as much information as possible to inform our design process. I'm here to ask if, collectively, you'd be interested in giving us some feedback on some market research questions, your input would be invaluable to us. We'd be asking questions such as; what parameters you value the most; what accuracies you need; whether certain features of current anemometers/weather stations could be improved; what wireless range we might need and so on.

Link to the IfM website explaining the Major Project

If you'd like more information then please ask!

Thanks,

Lawrence

[Uskys]

Welcome to UKww Lawrence.

About time this gap in the market was exploited. One question, is there any chance your project could see production ?

[Dave K]

Uskys, on 22 January 2013 - 13:07, said:

Welcome to UKww Lawrence.

About time this gap in the market was exploited. One question, is there any chance your project could see production ?

Agreed, and it would be great to see a UK designed and made weather station in an affordable price range similar in spec to the Davis Vantage Pro if that were possible ( excluding Campbell Scientific which is fully pro gear of course!).

IMO the basic parameters for measurement have to be temperature, humidity, precipitation and windspeed/direction. After that, perhaps in an optional extra cost modular expansion, some form of sunshine and/or solar radiation and/or UV sensor (as many users like myself don't have optimum conditions for exposure).

Software +/- user calibration for these parameters is very useful although this can be offered by 3rd party offerings. Solar power for remote sensors with battery backup. Some form of console datalogging with user selectable time intervals that doesn't necessitate permanant connection to a running computer. As for wireless range I can't see that more than 100m is necessary and that more than most folks need except that the extra range helps address any reception issues.

[HSEA3]

Make sure it has a sunshine duration recorder on it...a definite gap in the market there IMO, at least in reasonably priced weather stations.

[LawrenceB]

Uskys, on 22 January 2013 - 13:07, said:

Welcome to UKww Lawrence.

About time this gap in the market was exploited. One question, is there any chance your project could see production ?

Thanks for the warm reception.

Our project doesn't really have an end point because it is so open-ended. We would really like to get a business plan, set of manufacturing drawings and maybe a looks-like prototype going. The students normally retain project IP rights so if we do enough work and our analysis shows that it could be a viable business we may be able to pitch it to someone already up and running and they would take it off our hands. The chances of us taking it into production as a student project are basically zero, we have enough technical knowledge to do the design and look at the specification but when it comes to the electronics and signals we would have no idea what we are doing.

Dave K, on 22 January 2013 - 13:27, said:

Agreed, and it would be great to see a UK designed and made weather station in an affordable price range similar in spec to the Davis Vantage Pro if that were possible ( excluding Campbell Scientific which is fully pro gear of course!).

IMO the basic parameters for measurement have to be temperature, humidity, precipitation and windspeed/direction. After that, perhaps in an optional extra cost modular expansion, some form of sunshine and/or solar radiation and/or UV sensor (as many users like myself don't have optimum conditions for exposure).

Software +/- user calibration for these parameters is very useful although this can be offered by 3rd party offerings. Solar power for remote sensors with battery backup. Some form of console datalogging with user selectable time intervals that doesn't necessitate permanant connection to a running computer. As for wireless range I can't see that more than 100m is necessary and that more than most folks need except that the extra range helps address any reception issues.

The parameters we are pretty sure that we are going to offer are wind speed, wind direction, temperature, RH, and pressure. When you talk about precipitation do you mean the Yes/No indication present on some of the Thies units or a full rain gauge? We want to design something which is as inclusive as possible even to people who have zero expertise in the meteorology field (such as farmers, sailing clubs, golf courses, schools, etc...) and part of this is that ultrasonics require no maintenance and sticking a big bucket on top (which birds inevitably poo in) pretty much negates this benefit. I guess the most sensible approach here would be to have the modular system you talk about, perhaps with an entirely separate rain/sun sensor which could be put in an easier to reach location.

HSEA3, on 22 January 2013 - 13:29, said:

Make sure it has a sunshine duration recorder on it...a definite gap in the market there IMO, at least in reasonably priced weather stations.

This is something we are definitely thinking about and might include as option, because I expect a lot of people don't need it and therefore don't appreciate the extra pricetag that comes with it.


I think the best way to get feedback from you would be if I set up a separate thread specifically for feedback on certain questions and then I leave this one here for things you want to clarify or ask me.

[Uskys]

Thanks for clarifying my question.

can I email met-enquiries(at)eng.cam.ac.uk or do you have direct one?

[Dave K]

LawrenceB, on 22 January 2013 - 16:02, said:

The parameters we are pretty sure that we are going to offer are wind speed, wind direction, temperature, RH, and pressure. When you talk about precipitation do you mean the Yes/No indication present on some of the Thies units or a full rain gauge?

Yes I meant full measurement of precipitation, not just on/off with amount in as small increments as feasible (0.1 mm as an ideal). I know that there are ultrasonic devices to measure precipitation such as made by Vaisala but I don't know if they work really, if they can differentiate between rain or snow and the different amounts contained by snowflakes and raindrops.

One of the bugbears with a bucket is that it stops tipping and gets filled up quickly in snow events so (unless you have a heated one) you can get up in the morning and find it overflowing so that your measurement of amounts and time precip/rainfall equivalent is right up the swanny!

[LawrenceB]

Uskys, on 22 January 2013 - 16:29, said:

Thanks for clarifying my question.

can I email met-enquiries(at)eng.cam.ac.uk or do you have direct one?

We have a project email which is ifmweatherstationproject@gmail.com this forwards to all three of us doing the project, or if you want to contact me personally (or don't want to type out our ridiculously long email) then you can use lbaker2210@gmail.com

Dave K, on 22 January 2013 - 16:52, said:

Yes I meant full measurement of precipitation, not just on/off with amount in as small increments as feasible (0.1 mm as an ideal). I know that there are ultrasonic devices to measure precipitation such as made by Vaisala but I don't know if they work really, if they can differentiate between rain or snow and the different amounts contained by snowflakes and raindrops.

One of the bugbears with a bucket is that it stops tipping and gets filled up quickly in snow events so (unless you have a heated one) you can get up in the morning and find it overflowing so that your measurement of amounts and time precip/rainfall equivalent is right up the swanny!

I've never used the Vaisala one, I assume this is the model you're talking about. It's a really neat design which looks at the vibrations from rain droplets and uses their size and frequency to work out rainfall, however from what I've heard it doesn't actually work that well other than giving you a rough estimate other than if it's raining and whether it's torrential. I would imagine snow is a no go since it won't cause any vibrations when it lands (in fact a small amount of snow could damp the whole system). Further to this, that station is way out of our price range so we probably couldn't get close to similar technology. If we're looking at a £500 price point then we don't really want to spend more than £150 on the actual manufacture (by the time you go through distributors etc, all your profit would have disappeared.)

That station apparently gives a 5% accuracy for rainfall, but it has a sneaky asterix hiding "Due to the nature of the phenomenon, deviations caused by spatial variations may exist in precipitation readings, especially in short time scale. The accuracy specification does not include possible wind induced error." Which basically says that it could be anything.

One of the issues we are facing in designing a specification is that no one is completely truthful with their spec (especially at low levels of the market) so if you give a true spec, then you end up under selling yourself slightly. If you look at some of the cheaper systems they appear to have amazing specs when compared to professional instruments, but that's because the professional instruments are being honest, whereas the cheaper ones are less so.

[Dave K]

LawrenceB, on 22 January 2013 - 17:20, said:

I've never used the Vaisala one, I assume this is the model you're talking about. It's a really neat design which looks at the vibrations from rain droplets and uses their size and frequency to work out rainfall, however from what I've heard it doesn't actually work that well other than giving you a rough estimate other than if it's raining and whether it's torrential. I would imagine snow is a no go since it won't cause any vibrations when it lands (in fact a small amount of snow could damp the whole system). Further to this, that station is way out of our price range so we probably couldn't get close to similar technology. If we're looking at a £500 price point then we don't really want to spend more than £150 on the actual manufacture (by the time you go through distributors etc, all your profit would have disappeared.)

That station apparently gives a 5% accuracy for rainfall, but it has a sneaky asterix hiding "Due to the nature of the phenomenon, deviations caused by spatial variations may exist in precipitation readings, especially in short time scale. The accuracy specification does not include possible wind induced error." Which basically says that it could be anything.

One of the issues we are facing in designing a specification is that no one is completely truthful with their spec (especially at low levels of the market) so if you give a true spec, then you end up under selling yourself slightly. If you look at some of the cheaper systems they appear to have amazing specs when compared to professional instruments, but that's because the professional instruments are being honest, whereas the cheaper ones are less so.

Yes I guess the adage applies "if it looks too good to be true it probably is"! The Vaisala looks low maintenance which may be part of its appeal, but I think most serious amateurs will accept some inconveniences in terms of needing to access for cleaning etc if the benefit is greater accuracy, given two points:

i) that no-one should really expect instrumentation that meets the very highest standards required for official acceptance for the kind of price that you are talking about;

ii) Most enthusiasts like myself have a weather station siting that is of far more detriment to totally accurate measurement than the shortcomings of instrumentation.

[P.K.]

This looks like an interesting project. Whilst the VP2 you mention is good it is rather expensive. As others have said it does really need to be able to measure the precipitation to make it of any use and a solar/UV sensor would be a great addition. I wish I had these sensors on my VP2 but it is so expensive to add them on (or even purchase when you buy the system in the first place).