The date of the file creation depends entirely on the date setting on the computer the file was written. If that date was wrong, the files own date will also be wrong.

I have only seen two versions of the software, judging by the V - V1 and V2. I got V2 with the unit on a CD, with no clue as to the sub version. I downloaded a V2 marked as 4.12 from their site, then later one marked as 4.16. I also found a V1 which suggested to be more stable and perhaps free of the rainfall corruption.

I have the latest copy from the manufacturers site which is supposedly V2 4.16. This is 1.20 MB (1,261,568 bytes) and internally dated 12 April 2008, 23:21:42 - the same as yours. The 4.16 is now available at Fine Offset Eletronics Co.,LTD.

I also have a copy of the V1 I managed to find. This is 1.37 MB (1,437,696 bytes) and internally dated 07 January 2008, 23:35:24.

I no longer have a copy of what was supposed to be V2 4.12 against which to compare what is supposed to be the 4.16 I am currently using..

As you point out it is all very confusing due to the software writers poor control of his version numbers.

I have no opinion either way as to whether my rain gauge hardware is under or over reporting rainfall, though very obviously there is a problem with the software. The see very same (identical) gauge is used on more expensive systems than this one.

Rain Guage:

If this is made by the same people as LaCrosse et. al.

There can be problems with the reed switch itself - the plating on the reed falls off !!!

La Crosse Rain Sensors

This could cause the reading to be low / high / or non-existant !!!!.

If there is a doubt and you can use a soldering iron replace the reed (Normally Open) contact.

Plus I have discovered that the reed makes a beautiful aerial for lightning, which may affect your count (increase)

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As my main interest in the unit is realtime reporting through UIView to the amateur APRSserv network and one version of the software crashes regularly and the other reports monsoons for no apparent reason how good or bad the rain guage may be is pretty acedemic. The only way to avoid reporting garbage or missing large swathes because the software isn't running is to not report the rainfall data at all.

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First rainfall recording glitch. For 6 hours from 6am yesterday I had the seismograph effect with 5mm swings on the graph, but it settled down again at 12 midday. In the end recording 3.5mm more rain than I had actually had. Curiously, however, the reading on the DISPLAY remained correct.

Coincidentally, or otherwise, it so happened that at 6am I exported my August data to a back-up folder ....

It will be interesting to see if it happens again when I next export.

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It seems to happen any time when there is some real rainfall. I've never seen it completely invent rain - it just seems to multiply up whatever there was.

There is indeed no problem with any of the data held in the display unit - it's purely a PC software error which corrupts the PC display and easyweather.dat file. If you delete easyweather.dat and restart easyweather it will completely rebuild a good dat file from the display unit memory (latest 4k entries).

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Whilst agreeing that the false rain does seem to only occur when there is real rain recorded, I have never seen the graph for false rain settle back to normal. When ever I have seen the false rain, which is fairly often - the readings have always been quite massive.

As an alternative method of clearing the false data - and the only way to not loose data if your .dat file has older data than the display, is to use Worpad or Notepad to delete the faulty lines then save it. EW will then download it again from the displays memory. Check via the graph when the false data first appeared - you can zoom right in to enable you to see the minute when it started, then look in the .dat for that same line marked by time and dat at the start and delete all the lines below it. You will need to stop EW running while you do this, but when you run it again it will re-download the data again and in all likelihood without any false data.

Note that there will be many more lines in the file, than is usual for the time period covered when there is faulty data in the file.

Thanks. It seemed to cope with yesterday's torrential rain with no problems.

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Weather is sunny and warm with southerly winds - earlier were northerly. 25 degrees C. Mind you this is near Malaga.

Did anyone find a way of resetting the data in the Watson W-8681? Mine has wrong data in it and I cannot correct them. The temperature indoors seems set at 106.7 degree C or F.

Regarding the pressure. How do I establish the Absolute pressure to input into easyweather? Also the pressure reading does fly around all over the place. Currently shows 919 hPa relative - is that likely??

Any suggestions welcome. This has been a pig to set up but slowly bits are starting to work - cant say why!

Regards
Steve

I think it's the relative (sea level)pressure you have to put in, isn't it? best way is wait for a good stable high pressure where you are, and then find out what a station near you is reading, and set it to that.

No, far too low. That would beat the lowest pressure ever anywhere in the world, apart from tropical storms. As you're so far out, you could just set it to the same as a local station now anyway, and do a more accurate calibration later. Just set it to the same as the airport:

Malaga, Spain Forecast : Weather Underground

Steve

Hi All, What a great forum! I've had my 'Maplin' W-8681 since June and apart from initially siting the rain gauge on a wobbly pole, it has worked OK until today when it refuses to load data to my PC (WinXP). Unlike some correspondents, I only connect to my PC occasionally. I've saved previous data files and installed the latest version of Easyweather (4-16) from Fine offset Electronics which still tells me that 'Last read time' is current time and date and 'Read Records: 0: (Total records: 0)' Before I try to obtain a replacement unit, is there any way to get the data for the last week. The unit is showing current and previous data OK. I still think it's good value.