weather down.. and up!
The Davis Vantage Vue weather station dropped off the air one night, but we didn’t notice until a day or two later. The thing is, it came back up in the daytime. Hmmm.. That sounds like a dead battery and a solar panel picking up the slack.
Haul the stepladder out back to the station, open it up test the battery and lo and behold.. it was lower than 2.7vdc. It is a lithium CR123 battery that is nominally rated at above 3v and when it falls below 2.7v it is considered dead. Bummer. And it was only 10 months old!
Looked back through the records and it looks like we bought two of them back in 2017 December… do you think we could find the other one? Not a chance.
It is not a common battery and it took a few more days to track one down, at a better price of only $5, and then install on Saturday morning.. so we have lost a few days of nighttime weather data but all in all it is not too bad.
We also bought a 2nd battery (good price remember?) and this time it is taped to the internal receiver station! So far … good data day and night!
Note to self in the springtime… lower the station from the top of the existing 8′ 4×4 post to something lower down that does not require a stepladder to access.