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Ultrasonic Anemometer
#11
(2021-01-16, 04:41 PM)GMeloche Wrote: Hi CaptnBry, I am new member as I discover your forum yesterday, I am very interest on Ultrasonic Wind speed/direction as I trying from last month to design and make one from scratch (components) and discover last week this unit HY-wdc2e witch I did contact them and they asking us $139.00 + shipping as they made a big batch of them, color black, RS232, RS485 NMEA-0183, so very attractive price. I uspect that they use Arduino STM32 as CPU just a guest. But I am interesting to use an ESP32 witch I could communicate in WIFi/BLE mode instead. I am a fan of using openCPN in W10 and Android. I use Visuino to develop my circuits on Arduino and ESP's MCU devices, so don't need to be a programmers in CC+ language. I use UNIX type of OS all my life and today I try to avoid this type of OS. Android and W10 period. I am interest in flowing up with this project of Ultrasonic device. Very..Very interesting.


Hi GMeloche 
I have not found this at the price you are stating. I contacted the manufacturer, they quoted me 439 USD. Where are you finding this at 139?
cheers
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#12
Hi RASTAM4N, here is a quote I received last week from Stefan and as well I did found on AliExpress too at 139.00, I trying to find it where I get it and I will post here. Because they make a bulk production for this unit. The price you get is because GPS & compass on it.
Hi Gilles,
Price of HY-WDC2E is 139 USD/UNIT/FOB CHINA.
If you are going to use it on boat, I would recommend you HY-WDS2E with compass and GPS, which cost 530 USD/UNIT/FOB CHINA.
Which one do you prefer?

Hongyuv is professional manufacturer of meteorological instruments with over ten years experience in this field.
Our cheaper ultrasonic anemometer only cost 139 USD/UNIT/FOB CHINA
Cheapest ultrasonic weather station with wind, temperature, humidity, air pressure is only 255 USD/UNIT/FOB CHINA
All of our sensors are calibrated as high accuracy.
You can take a look at our site photos at: http://www.hongyuv.com/en/article/traffi...on-11.html
You can download our catalog at http://www.hongyuv.com/Catalog_HongYuv.pdf
Our IoT platform demonstration video at: http://www.hongyuv.com/video/IoT.mp4
Our anemometer comparison video at:
We develop and manufacture following products:
- radar rain gauge
- all-in-one ultrasonic weather station
- forward scattering visibility sensor
- infrared remote road surface state temperature sensor
- tunnel luminance/illuminance sensor
- Davis VP2 compatible solar radiation, ultrasonic anemometer(plug & play)
Our weather station sensor can be up to ten parameters(optional):
wind speed
wind direction
air humidity
air temperature
barometric
precipitation
solar radiation
brightness
UV
PM1.0 PM2.5 PM10
Flexible combination.
Price vary based on parameters needed.
Look forward to your reply.

________________________________________
Best Regards,
Stefan
Sales Manager

Here is the unit on bulk production:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/H...151a019Ijo
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#13
(2021-01-16, 04:41 PM)GMeloche Wrote: Hi CaptnBry, I am new member as I discover your forum yesterday, I am very interest on Ultrasonic Wind speed/direction as I trying from last month to design and make one from scratch (components) and discover last week this unit HY-wdc2e witch I did contact them and they asking us $139.00 + shipping as they made a big batch of them, color black, RS232, RS485 NMEA-0183, so very attractive price. I uspect that they use Arduino STM32 as CPU just a guest. But I am interesting to use an ESP32 witch I could communicate in WIFi/BLE mode instead. I am a fan of using openCPN in W10 and Android. I use Visuino to develop my circuits on Arduino and ESP's MCU devices, so don't need to be a programmers in CC+ language. I use UNIX type of OS all my life and today I try to avoid this type of OS. Android and W10 period. I am interest in flowing up with this project of Ultrasonic device. Very..Very interesting.

Hello GMeloche and welcome Aboard !

I too considered making an ultrasonic anemometer from parts.
But the price ($139USD is even better !) is the almost price of parts.
The fast ESP processors are needed for measuring the sound wave speed.
Interfacing a $139 device to OpenPlotter (OpenCPN) should be more simple.
The BLE is very interesting too.

Do you have success passing data from your circuit to OpenCPN?

(2021-01-17, 05:55 AM)seandepagnier Wrote: I have a few concerns but otherwise ultrasonic sounds great.

1)  wifi latency - from esp32 to esp32 probably ok, but going to raspberry pi I would ensure it is always below 100ms (prefer 10ms)  or it will not be suitable for autopilot.   Can we determine if this is possible?   I think it may require an external esp32 to receive on a dedicated wifi/bt, and this would communicate with the pi on a serial port. The linux wifi stack cannot be relied on for realtime.  It may work great for a while then get stuck and not send/receive data for more than a second.  Especially if other wifi transfers are going on to another machine or something.  Otherwise it will work with degraded performance, and people will just do it anyway and not realize that their boat is not steering as efficiently on wind mode as it really should.  So I realize I cannot convince everyone, but this is the reason I do not want wireless wind sensors.   You have to run power to them anyway and 4 wires is as easy as 2.
2)  accuracy -   are these sensors actually accurate to 1 degree?   I seriously doubt it, and it's clear from the picture that they are not designed to take air when tilted but are intended to be perfectly vertical.   When tilted turbulence will probably mess up the reading.   At least a rotating vane feels wind the same as a sail so it compenates for this mechanically.   To do this with ultrasonic needs tilt sensor and software compensation which is much more complicated.
3)  cost -  I'm not sure ultrasonic will ever be as cheap as mechanical.  I built mechanical sensors which cost a fraction of the $139 figure and are accurate to 0.1 degrees.
4) power consumption - I don't think these use much power, but how much?  For comparison, my mechanical ones are using 13 milliamps at 5 volts, so with linear regulator, 13 milliamps at 12 volts which is 1/6th watt.
5)  heavy rain - it's well known that ultrasonic sensors cut out at some point if the rain is heavy enough.   I also wonder how the accuracy is affected.   Mechanical sensors feel rain the same way the sails do again, so even if the reading is different, it gives what you want.

I could probably make  a list for why ultrasonic are probably better too.

Hello seandepagnier and Welcome Aboard !

You bring up some very good points with excellent technical referencing, thank you.

1) & 4) Latency & Power: Racers and Autopilots I think are the fastest data stream demand Users. Any hardware output will have some software smoothing/averaging/algorithm (inverse sum of the squares for example) best suited to that application.

???   I think our focus here should be just the raw data stream?

One method might be a BLE from the Anemometer to a dedicated slave BLE that connects serial directly to the RPi GPIO pins. BLE is low power and fast enough for audio, so it should meet our needs. The receiving ESP32 could format to SignalK JSON on the fly. Another Member suggested the manufacturer could supply a faster data stream, since they have an extensive design team in-house. 10Hkz was suggested by some Racers. A small solar cell/Lipo Battery might be enough to power the anemometer without any wires at all.

2) Accuracy your previous experience with mechanical wind sensors is excellent. "..Feel the wind & rain like the sails" sounds very correct to me.
For an Autopilot, such as pyPilot or your own, wouldn't a tilt sensor (9-axis accelerator), magnetic compass and GPS heading also be part of the algorithm? My mechanical Monitor Wind Vane 'autopilot' does the tilt compensation with a clever weight design and the boat's motion.

3) Cost, yep its going to be more expensive, but this IS "the new stuff". Browsing the West Marine catalog makes this project seem like a bargain to me Big Grin

5) heavy rain; Ya got me on that one.  Undecided

May I ask your suggestions for a mechanical wind speed sensor? Ray-marine now sells "my idea", LoL. They call it the Rotovector Z195. The the "cups" sense speed & direction with a non-linear cup design and an Index Pulse.


Cheers !

(2021-01-17, 02:27 PM)GMeloche Wrote: Hi, I did found this URL, it is in french and this guy purchase it and made some test on it, this morning I did send him if he had a chance to open it and see what is inside, waiting for answer.
https://faire-ca-soi-meme.fr/domotique/2...n-du-vent/

Great Link !
The Translate to English button worked fine.
He did a really nice write-up !
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#14
Hi CAPNTBRY, I don't have this HY-wdc2e yet, I discover yesterday 2 more suppliers at $130.00. Concerning connection to OpenCPN, at the moment I have Laptop W10 witch a GPS puck connected to it and work just fine. With the Ultrasonic I would use the RS485 to USB module to make it work. On Android my intent is to use ESP32 via wifi/BLE for connection. Just to go little bit better I might replace the MCU on the Ultrasonic with an ESP32....why not!
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#15
(2021-01-18, 06:12 PM)CaptnBry Wrote: K JSON on the fly. Another Member suggested the manufacturer could supply a faster data stream, since they have an extensive design team in-house. 10Hkz was suggested by some Racers. A small solar cell/Lipo Battery might be enough to power the anemometer without any wires at all.

2) Accuracy your previous experience with mechanical wind sensors is excellent. "..Feel the wind & rain like the sails" sounds very correct to me.
For an Autopilot, such as pyPilot or your own, wouldn't a tilt sensor (9-axis accelerator), magnetic compass andlot GPS heading also be part of the algorithm? My mechanical Monitor Wind Vane 'autopilot' does the tilt compensation with a clever weight design and the boat's motion.

yes, pypilot generally follows a compass course all the time, and in wind mode adjusts the compass course to meet the commanded wind angle. This allows for a slow filter of the wind data. The "wind pilot" does something different but this is still experimental. So it is part of the the algorithm of course but not my point.

My point is, the ultrasonic anemometer discussed for $139 is clearly designed intended to be mounted vertical. It is not designed to take wind from an angle. So if the boat is heeling, the wind will flow through the sense area at an angle which creates much turbulence and it is doubtful that the readings will be accurate.

Quote:May I ask your suggestions for a mechanical wind speed sensor? Ray-marine now sells "my idea", LoL.  They call it the Rotovector Z195. The the "cups" sense speed & direction with a non-linear cup design and an Index Pulse.
This is the worst design I have seen. It is incredibly inaccurate for wind direction, and similar to the "peet bros" design only worse. The the wind direction is not accurate enough for even basic use, and in lighter winds the accuracy decreases more. It is not even close to good enough for an autopilot.

I have 3d printed anemometers I hope to provide kits at some point. Mine are accuracy to 0.1 degrees, but I admit ultrasonic is in theory better in some ways but seems to have shortfalls.

I agree to use a dedicated esp32 to receive BT from wind sensors and this wired to the pi's pins or even just via usb rather than use the pi wifi which is not deterministic.
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#16
(2021-01-21, 03:43 AM)seandepagnier Wrote: Previous Reply slice; "My point is, the ultrasonic anemometer discussed for $139 is clearly designed intended to be mounted vertical.   It is not designed to take wind from an angle.   So if the boat is heeling, the wind will flow through the sense area at an angle which creates much turbulence and it is doubtful that the readings will be accurate."

Understood. For competition and autopilots, speed & accuracy are the driving Design Goals

I read-up on some tests, since I have no data of my own, even from prototypes.
Referencing Practical Sailor; https://www.practical-sailor.com/marine-...ensor-test
(yes, i agree their "science" is not laboratory grade)
And that report is dated 2015
They claim the Matreon and Airmar can be "accurate' with a 45 degree heel
They also said (agreeing) that Racers prefer cup/vane for accuracy & response, but Cruisers and others would prefer the no-moving parts and bird-resistant features of the ultrasonic approach.

I think your (good) point of turbulence is due to the two-plates design, when the wind is not coming through the slot smoothly?

Do you think the "claw" type design (pic) may be less prone to turbulence?

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2F...f=1&nofb=1]
i was thinking that with an angle sensor (MeMs IMU) the software might be able to compensate for tilt effects.... to some level that needs experimental data.
The ESP8266 is wicked-fast, so a bit of calculus and look-up tables is possible too.


PS: I 3D printed some anemometer cups too, along with many Boat CAD projects; 3D printing Rocks !
I even used some Ninjaflex for water pump gaskets; its water & diesel proof!
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#17
yes, I think the claw design is much better for heeling. The software could and probably compensate as well but the question is, does it actually do it?

I found also the flexible filament to be waterproof.
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#18
Most likely, compensating for tilt induced variance would be on us to derive from collected data under controlled conditions. The ESP8266 is certainly fast enough for a bit of calculus & look-up tables

Have you seen this odd design?
Its for Drone Autopilot use, which I believe would need to be Fast & Accurate
Based on 3 highly sensitive MeMs pressure transducers and a 3d (resin) printed intake.
https://developer.sensirion.com/applicat...ing-sdp3x/
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#19
(2021-01-19, 08:49 PM)GMeloche Wrote: Hi CAPNTBRY, I don't have this HY-wdc2e yet, I discover yesterday 2 more suppliers at $130.00. Concerning connection to OpenCPN, at the moment I have Laptop W10 witch a GPS puck connected to it and work just fine. With the Ultrasonic I would use the RS485 to USB module to make it work. On Android my intent is to use ESP32 via wifi/BLE for connection. Just to go little bit better I might replace the MCU on the Ultrasonic with an ESP32....why not!

Hi GMeloche,
I finally have my test system running:
Rpi 3 OpenPLotter, SignalK Server
RTL-SDR AIS
GPS by USB

Question: Should the GPS be software installed under SignalK Server or installed directly in OpenCPN (which I did) ?
What do you think is the best way to get our custom Anemometer data through SigkSens and into OpenPlotter?  can SigkSens be added to , or use another ESP8266?
All these software library modules are much more complicated than my usual method of MCU-to-MCU over hard-wired UARTs

Cheers
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#20
Hi CAPNTBRY, the GPS puck is connected to USB on the laptop and OpenCPN detect it and run fine. On Android tablet there is an internal GPS and also OpenCPN detect it and run fine. In my case I don't use SignalK Server neither OpenPlotter neither SigkSens and I don't have Pi. I stay away of Linux or Unix stuff. On Arduino's or ESP's modules I use Visuino which is a visual software that you just click on an input/output and Visuino will create in C++ an .ino file like IDE do, Bingo it work. BTW I just found another place in Alibaba a Ultrasonic module unit at $110.00 + $25.00 for shipping. On their specs I don't see MNEA-0183, so waiting for an answer from them since this morning.
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