Filling In A Few Gaps

I broke my blogging log jam earlier this week with a bit of advice on How To Feed A Rabbit.  As informative as that post was, I wanted to get back to something else I've been digging in to on this blog: exploring the innards of the Davis Weather Station console.  There are a couple things that have been figured out since I last wrote about the thing, so let's fill in a few gaps.

Some time ago, I opened the console up and worked out the pinout on the console's expansion connector.  Remember this picture?  Of course you do.

Back when I published this pinout, I was left scratching my head as to what TXD1 and RXD1 did after successfully getting data out of TXD0 and RXD0.  Leave it to wxforum member C2520, the guy who successfully disassembled the Davis firmware and then poured over it for a couple years to figure out how it all works (I AM NOT WORTHY!).  He wrote on this post:

That's easy, USART1 is used for the cabled version. Just look at the interrupt vector table, only the cabled firmware version has an interrupt vector for USART1.

These things are obvious once you know the answer, I guess.

While we are filling in the gaps, here is another one.  When I first opened up the console, I found this mysterious character:

Later on we figured out that this was the atmospheric pressure sensor, but didn't know much more than that.  But we know more now.  Thanks to the keen eyes of wxforum member adnadeau, the mystery was solved in this post.  Borrowing some of my own verbiage from that thread...

The part is a Measurement Specialties 5534CM.  Applications include "Weather control systems" according to its product page (man, I'd love to be able to control the weather). Here is its product page, here is where you can buy it, and here is some Arduino code to drive it!

The cool thing about this part is that it has a digital interface rather than an analog one I had originally guessed at.  It also is factory calibrated.  Davis was smart and kept things simple: the amount of A/D they have to do in the console is exactly zero.  But there seems to be a price to pay for this simplicity: $27.27 for a single piece, to be exact.  Good thing they are cheaper by the 1,000.

This all goes to show how good things can happen when you put some information out there.  Other people either know something as well and are willing to share, or somebody sees something that you missed.  I get a kick out of it every time a new piece of the puzzle gets put in place.

Speaking of which, I put in an order to Mouser Electronics last night for a new Davis-related project.  So hopefully there will be some good news to share in the next two or three weeks.  I already have my blog post mostly written: I'm banking on success!

How To Feed A Rabbit

Boy Howdy, has it been a long time since I have blogged.  I anticipated as much though.  My time is very short in the summer, as I think I mentioned the last time I blogged.  With the Great Landscape Redesign decided upon, I spend most of my free time outside busting ass in the summer time.  I'll give you one example of that ass-busting today.  Here is my secret technique for feeding rabbits.

First find a nice spot to dig a hole.

Now, start digging!  This starts off pretty easy.

But life isn't always easy.  You might hit the odd rock.

It might take a bit of effort, but you'll get that rock out.  Aren't those little bunnies worth it?

There might be more than one rock.  Don't start slacking off now!

Now get your ridiculously expensive tree planter out of the garage.  Head on out to the garden and set it up around one of the trees that you have been nursing since it was just a couple inches high (the tree only took five or six years to get this size: it all went by in a blur, really).

Now take that sledge that shows up on the left side of the tree planter.  Lift it up and drop it down to drive the tree planter spades in to the dirt.  The sledge weighs something like 35 pounds, so hopefully you ate a good breakfast this morning (feeding rabbits is no job for wimps!).  By the way, you better hope that there aren't any rocks that the spades of the tree planter will hit as you drive them down.  Otherwise you'd have to dig those rocks out from under the spade so you get enough root and the tree doesn't die on you later.  Boy, wouldn't that be a miserable job (ask me how I know).

OK, now that the tree is dug out, it is time to cart the tree over to the hole we dug before.  My, there sure were a lot of rocks that had to be dug out of that hole.

The tree isn't going to grow in all those rocks you dug out.  You're going to need good topsoil to fill it in, but where do you get the topsoil from?  Good question.  You can't dig it out of the garden, or you are just shooting yourself in the foot.  Best to spend a pile of money to get a truck to bring some in.  But what is the right amount to get trucked in?  Well, considering that you are going to need a lot of dirt for all the other projects you have going on, that you live out of town, and that mileage makes up a significant proportion of the costs, you might as well get a semi-trailer load full.  That is 20 square yards of dirt.  Let me tell ya, whoever coined the phrase "dirt cheap" had no idea what the hell they were talking about.  But think of the bunnies!

Fill in the hole with some proper topsoil. Add a little water.  And prayer.

Rinse and repeat.

Now do a bit of cleanup.

There you go!  Now you know all there is to feeding a rabbit.  I hope you've found this useful.  I've searched around on the net and haven't seen a similar approach, so I think I'm on to something pretty novel here.

What's that you say?  This has nothing to do with feeding rabbits?  Au contraire, mon ami!  Take a look at the trees we planted last year.  These trees used to have branches right down to the ground.  Thar's good rabbit food, I must say.

Anyhoo, enough about rabbits.  Faithful readers of my blog (if there is such a thing) might be relieved to know that I have a couple things in the works now that fall has finally arrived.  I'll be putting in an order to Mouser Electronics tonight for another Davis Weather Station Hack, and I've been getting the odd batch of bread making in.  Things might still be sparse for the next month or so until I can clear a logjam at work (don't get me started!), but hopefully I can get back to making this blog semi-interesting again.

This post has been brought to you by HARE: Help A Rabbit Eat.