Davis WeatherLink on the Mac
 

I wonder if anyone here has experience of using Davis WeatherLink on the Mac.

I have at last upgraded an Intel iMac, and have been trying to transfer
my data. The problem is that the version supplied on the CD is WL 5.03,
but this version crashes horribly.

There is a downloadable bug fix update to 5.04, but when I install this
and run it I get the message "This is an upgrade version. You will need
to purchase the full version."

This can't be right, but I can't work out what I'm doing wrong. The
Davis Support people don't reply to questions.

I see there are alternatives to WeatherLink out there - does anyone
have any experience of them?

Trevor
http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/

Davis WeatherLink on the Mac
 

Hi, Trevor:
I see there are alternatives to WeatherLink out there - does anyone have
any experience of them?

I have no experience of the Mac, but I have tried WeatherLink on Windows
and found it very inflexible: no starting the day at 0900, for instance.
I have also tried Cumulus, but it couldn't see the USB connection. I'm
currently running WeatherDisplay. It runs in W98 on an ancient Dell
laptop, but, like Cumulus, can't see the USB connection in WXP. There is
also a version of WDisplay for Linux, but I haven't so far got it to run
at all!

I'm tempted to do some research and write something of my own, but it
would be a rather daunting prospect, and I'm not sure I have the time left!

Sorry not to be more help. Perhaps someone else can take us through a
different gate.

Hugh

--

Hugh Newbury

www.evershot-weather.org

Davis WeatherLink on the Mac
 

On Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:06:11 +0100, Trevor Harley
wrote:

I wonder if anyone here has experience of using Davis WeatherLink on the Mac...

The underlying problem with troubleshooting the Mac version of WL is
that so few people use it (I would guestimate that the Mac version is
literally no more than 1-2% of our total Weatherlink sales) that
there's only a small pool of experience on tap for sorting out
problems. In an ideal world I'd like to buy in and run a Mac (and
really to cover all the bases this might need to run to 2 or 3
different models or OS versions) but it's impossible to justify for
the very few occasions on which someone is experiencing a serious
problem with Mac WL.

That said, I would have thought that v5.0.4 ought to be a good bet at
solving the crashing problem with v5.0.3. I can't unfortunately
explain why you're experiencing problems installing v5.0.4 other than
to wonder if it's not a fully appropriate error message. Sometimes an
error is not trapped accurately in the code and a misleading error
message is displayed. There's no possibility of any permissions
needing to be set during or after the installation of the update is
there? And I presume that you did install 5.0.4 directly over 5.0.3
(ie in exactly the same folder location)?

I'm surprised that you haven't heard back from Davis support - they're
usually pretty good at responding, albeit sometimes with a 2 or 3 day
wait. If you want to copy your Davis email to me I'll see if I can get
any better a response.

Also, you could try asking also on a US-based forum eg Accuweather at:

forums.accuweather.com/index.php?s=fd9cc57fdb6dda3994947e9c783e3b1f&showf orum=4

There tend to be more Mac users in the US and so more chance of a
helpful response.

In general, the Windows WL software still strikes perhaps the best
balance between being robustness and feature-set, though it certainly
doesn't have have the range of features available in eg Weather
Display. Unfortunately the Mac WL coding was contracted out I believe
and the result isn't maybe as comprehensive or robust as the Windows
version. But I'd still be inclined to persevere with 5.0.4 in the
first instance.

As to other Mac packages, well there is Weather Display of course (see
www.weather-display.com) There's a huge number of features, almost
certainly more than any other AWS software, but not everyone gets on
well with the cosmetics, the sheer number of setting options available
and the occasional glitches.

There's also another package called WView (www.wviewweather.com) which
some users prefer.

No doubt Google might suggest further options.

John Dann
www.weatherstations.co.uk

Davis WeatherLink on the Mac
 

Hugh Newbury wrote:

I have also tried Cumulus, but it couldn't see the USB connection.

Cumulus won't drive the VP2 USB connection directly, but a number of
people are using it successfully via the CP210X USB-to-Serial software
that Davis supply - this used to be the only way that Weatherlink itself
would connect until the recent updates that provided direct USB support.
--
Steve Loft
Sanday, Orkney. 5m ASL. http://sanday.org.uk/weather
Free weather station softwa http://sandaysoft.com/
uk.sci.weather FAQs/glossary/etc: http://weatherfaqs.org.uk/

Davis WeatherLink on the Mac
 

On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:28:51 +0100, Steve Loft
wrote:

...via the CP210X USB-to-Serial software that Davis supply...

As I dare say Steve knows, but for anyone else who may be interested,
the necessary USB Virtual Com Port (VCP) 'driver' is actually provided
by Silicon Labs ('SiLabs') because they're the people who make the
chipset that performs the protocol conversion. If you're having
trouble getting this to work eg because of an unusual PC configuration
then there may well be a more recent or more relevant driver version
on the SiLabs website at:

https://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/...CPDrivers.aspx

Davis tend to include a new VCP driver version in their CD or download
libraries only once they've had a chance to test it thoroughly with
the Weatherlink loggers, which can obviously be a good thing (TM) but
does mean that the Davis version will not necessarily be the latest
available.

John Dann
www.weatherstations.co.uk

Davis WeatherLink on the Mac
 

On 2008-08-22 14:42:43 +0100, John Dann said:

On Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:06:11 +0100, Trevor Harley
wrote:

I wonder if anyone here has experience of using Davis WeatherLink on the Mac...

That said, I would have thought that v5.0.4 ought to be a good bet at
solving the crashing problem with v5.0.3. I can't unfortunately
explain why you're experiencing problems installing v5.0.4 other than
to wonder if it's not a fully appropriate error message. Sometimes an
error is not trapped accurately in the code and a misleading error
message is displayed. There's no possibility of any permissions
needing to be set during or after the installation of the update is
there? And I presume that you did install 5.0.4 directly over 5.0.3
(ie in exactly the same folder location)?


I have made some progress.

First, I uninstalled everything and reinstalled 5.03. I then eventually
discovered that you have to run 5.03 and let it crash before the 5.04
updater will work properly. (This is an incredible design feature.)

So now WL opens my station OK, but I get the spinning blue ball for a
few seconds, and then it won't download any data. If I try to access
the Bulletin Board I get the message:

Communicatio Error: Check station configuratin and serial port connections.

I wondered if this was to do with USB driver, so I downloaded the new
driver from Silicon Labs that you pointed to. (This is v 2.0 rather
than 1.02. Note: unlike the version supplied by Davis, this doesn't
come with an uninstaller, and I haven't yet discovered where the driver
is installed; if anyone knows offhand, could they please let me know?)
But this hasn't made any difference.

Progress, of sorts. I'm running one of the most recent iMacs.

Trevor