Reviews Archives - Page 19 of 43

Davis Vantage Vue 6250

2013/10/11 By staze

When my previous weather station ( LaCrosse WS2316) started dying, I didn’t have to think long about what to get as a replacement. I friend had recently received a Davis Vantage Vue, and loved it. So with money in hand (bank account), and ordered it, and the serial weatherlink interface from the cheapest place I could find online at that time, Ambient Weather. Total cost, including shipping, was ~$410. I also liked that they were in the west (faster shipping). In interesting bit, and of great credit to them, I found a cheaper price through Scientific Sales, INC, and emailed Ambient Weather. Within an hour, even well after their business hours, I had a refund for the difference of about $36 through PayPal. So, huge credit to Ambient Weather, I will certainly buy from them again.

The unit arrived a few days later, and I have to say, I was a bit surprised at the size. The sensor suite is a bit bigger than I thought (though I understand the Vantage Pro sensor cluster is REALLY big). Anyway, the console looked great (more on that later), and the sensor unit required some minor assembly. Sadly, the unit arrived on a Thursday, so I had to wait a couple days to install… I did do the assembly, and set the unit on a table, and then plug the console into a computer to test the data transmission. Documentation all says 1000ft line of sight with wind every 2.5 seconds, and then other data every 10 seconds. After hooking it all up with the Davis Weatherlink Serial, to a Keyspan USA-19HS, and grabbing the data with WeatherCat, after a couple days on my Macbook Air, I was seeing about 1 CRC error for every 10,000 good packets. Not too shabby. One note is that the console comes from the factory with insanely low contrast (which kind of made me think it was broken). To adjust, you just hit “2nd” then the up arrow multiple times to get it to where you want it.

On the following Saturday, got up on the roof and removed my old LaCrosse Anemometer, and PVC mast from the chimney straps, and went about installing the Davis. The first thing I realized was that the 10′ steel mast I had was too damn cumbersome to deal with, especially since I’ll have to take the unit down once a year for a backup battery change, and cleaning. So a hack-sawed the mast in half, and flipped it around to make, basically, two 5′ masts. This should make maintenance much easier in the future since I can just remove the top 5′ mast. The unit itself clamps to the mast with a U-bolt, which seemed a bit weird, but hey, installation of a wireless single piece unit was SO easy compared to my LaCrosse unit. I don’t look forward to the maintenance, but hey, it’s not too bad.

So install went great, and the unit talks to the console perfectly. About 1 CRC error in 10,000 good records. According to what I’ve seen online, this seems to be almost unavoidable with the US Console, regardless of the Weatherlink style. Ah well… 0.01% error isn’t too shabby.

And after a week of using the weather station, I can say I’m extremely happy with it. The console is easy to use (though I rarely do), the software I have used for years (WeatherCat, formerly Lightsoft Weather Center) works great as well (not surprising since the author uses Davis units). Really my only complaint is the cost of the Weatherlink. While I ended up getting it for just over $100, that’s still a lot to pay for a serial connection to a console. There are 3rd party ones through wxforum, and here. But given the wxforum ones are $75 or so, and the second doesn’t have logging (as well doesn’t work with console firmware 3.0 (which specifically seemed to address 3rd party adapters)), I figured I’d just get the real thing. It would just work, and warranty would apply should it die.

[xrr rating=5/5]

WEP 858D 110V Hot Air Station

2013/08/28 By staze

In my attempt to grow my repair gear arsenal, I recently picked up an inexpensive hot air station which gets pretty decent reviews around the web, a WEP 858D. This is the same as the Atten 858D, only it’s 110V (for us Americans) vs the Atten being 220-240V. Tenma also rebrands this unit as the 21-11425. I purchased mine though a company called Sain Smart for $52 with free shipping. Only down side, it’s from China, so it took about a week to arrive (which stuff from the US can take that long as well).

Early in the production of these units by Atten and WEP, there were some serious production issues that were highlighted on eevblog. At least one person’s was wired with the hot leg to the chassis (serious shock hazard), where a few others were just grounding issues (mainly that the unit was fully painted, so the ground connection to the chassis wasn’t making good contact), and a couple also were fused on the neutral leg. The main issue, which I also had, was the power switch was switching neutral, rather than hot. While this isn’t a MAJOR issue, it’s still not considered to be up to code, and is probably done to save a couple wire cuts, and a bit of time.

Anyway, I got my unit, checked all the grounded surfaces, opened it up and checked for stray solder, fused hot, etc. All looked pretty good, except the power switch was switching neutral. Worse, when I fully opened the unit, the power switch fell apart (see picture). Awesome. Figuring I’d give it a shot, I emailed Sain Smart and told them about the switch. Within 24 hours, I heard back that they didn’t stock the switch, but they’d be willing to pay for a replacement switch, including shipping from eBay. Knowing the eBay ones would be similarly sketchy, I asked about purchasing one from Digi-key, and they agreed. So, after some searching and measuring with my crappy calipers, I found the equivalent made by Cherry, the CH755-ND. I ordered 2 (never hurts to have a spare), and waited for them to arrive. And, I few days later, they did!

The new switch fit perfectly, and the same day I got the switch, I got the $4 credit via Paypal from Sain Smart. Awesome! Soldering in the replacement was cake. My only tip is, be quick. Switches are plastic, so if you apply heat for too long, you’ll melt things.

So, how does the unit work? Well, I haven’t done any reflow work with it yet, but I will say it kicks the pants off my hot air gun for doing simple shrink wrap work (certainly don’t have to worry about it melting the wire, or plastic around it). The unit is very quiet (relatively speaking), small, and really, just does the job. I’d highly recommend it for the $50 or so they go for if you plan to do anything with hot air. I’d enjoy being able to switch it to Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, but it really doesn’t matter that much. And I love to sleep function. I can use it at 300C, put it in the cradle, and 15 seconds later, it’s off (the system cools down to 100C before going to sleep). Pick it back up, and it’s back to 300C in no time. Better still, it remembers previous settings on power on. =)

Highly recommended if you are comfortable fixing the wiring.

[xrr rating=4.5/5]

The Wolverine

2013/07/28 By staze

Tara and I went and saw “The Wolverine” last night and off the bat, I’ll saw I was happy it wasn’t overly loud. Guessing that’s the theater, but hopefully it’s something we’ll see/hear more of in the future.

Anyway, the movie starts off with a bit of back story of Logan/Wolverine in Japan during WWII. And sadly, it also starts part of maybe the biggest issue with the movie: Japanese stereotypes. They’re not offensive in any way, but after the movie is over, we found ourselves laughing at how many there were, and it covered ((Seppuku, Mecha, a pachinko parlor, Samurai, Ninja, Yakuza, etc)). The movie largely takes place in Japan, with a fair amount of Japanese spoken (with and without subtitles, depending on if they want you to rely on another character translating). It mainly focuses around Logan hiding from his Wolverine persona, and protecting the grand-daughter of a man he saved back in WWII who had since started the equivalent of Sony, and was dying.

The movie fit the standard comic based movie, and was not a bad addition to the recent Marvel catalog, but I wouldn’t call it “good”. The last Wolverine movie was bad. This one is maybe on the plus side of okay. I’d watch it again, but I wouldn’t put it in my top list of comic movies, Marvel or not. I think it really comes down to, any comic movie based solely on one character seems difficult to pull off without being boring. Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America did a good job of this, but doing one on Wolverine would be like doing a movie based entirely on Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Entertaining maybe, but not really something you could tease out a 2 hour movie from (which was how long “The Wolverine” was, which seemed a bit long).

So, in short, see it, but don’t expect something as good as Iron Man 1 (or 3), Thor, or Captain America. Expect something more like Iron Man 2. Okay, but not great.

[xrr rating=3.75/5]

« Previous Page