buzzdavidson:
EmilyJane:
The remaining mystery to me is why they went to such trouble to hide what they are doing. The dummy looks EXACTLY like the real magnet. It's like they had a big batch of defective ceramic magnets to use up. The rotor that operates the HE for wind speed does have two functional magnets and looks identical to the Wind direction rotor. Curiouser and curiouser.Unlikely that they're hiding anything. Perhaps a counterweight? Provided for balance?
EmilyJane:
I'm still left with the problem of reprograming the stock chip. Anyone with any suggestions about that please step in.Adafruit sells a little ISP programmer (usbtiny) that should do the job nicely. It's supported directly by avrdude.
BTW, the Bus Pirate that I mentioned yesterday also fulfills this purpose. Also supported by avrdude. Just sayin'...
Oh, and my earlier suggestion regarding position is based upon experience with my own AAG weather station. You really don't get a useful position until it moves.
I'm sure it's a counterweight as you suggest but it is made out of the same material that the magnet is made from. Maybe they are readily available from another process/product.
I finally got avrdude/ArduinoISP to talk to the WS but I'll probably order one of the Adafruit programmers to use in the future. The problem was I needed to over-ride the baud rate in avrdude. Coding Badly figured that one out.
The new AAG will be even easier to determine wind direction now that I realize that there is only one magnet. It will work when the vane is stopped as well.