Crestline Soaring Society

7/21/09 UPDATE:

The manufacturer replaced the motherboard and re-used the Operating System chip (no longer available) and the Flash memory from the old unit, so all settings were preserved. It was literally plug-and-play! The webcam time lapse images are also functional once again - they stopped working because the scripts that manage them depend on the weather data.

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Original Post:

The Balls were home so I went up the hill this morning to check out the system. The weather instruments and webcam are working properly. The single-board computer (SiMBa) that gets the weather info from the instruments and sends it to the website doesn't seem to be booting up. I've brought it home and will poke around at it uselessly for a day or two before sending it to the manufacturer for an evaluation/repair/replacement etc. We've gotten 3.5 years out of the computer, which cost about $500 back in 2004 (it took a year to find a home for it). There are probably cheaper systems with similar or better capabilities (not that we need much) now, so if replacement is the only option I'll look at other units. The extra downtime that would go with adapting my software to a cheaper system might not be worth it.

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The manufacturer's website lists a similar unit with more ports and I/O features (not real useful to us) for $270, so if replacement is needed, that's not so painful.

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Update: Pushing the secret 'reset' button on the little box did no good. I've applied for permission to send it in for evaluation. If the problem is related to the power-in stage, they can replace a chip or two. I opened the box and none looked like the smoke had been let out. The 'DiskOnChip' solid-state 'drive' is no longer made but they indicate they could install Flash memory and reinstall the OS if the problem is with the DOC. So it looks promising.

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6/11/09 - Sent the computer to manufacturer; will arrive there Thursday.