Fellbach Germany - G. LUFFT MESS- UND REGELTECHNIK GMBH announced that they will begin production of a new integrated weather station with built in pyranometer. The new sensor will be add solar radiation measurement to existing sensors for temperature, relative humidity, air pressure and wind.

The WS301 and WS501 add to the Lufft line of innovative WS weather stations with intelligent microprocessor. The sensors are designed to reduce costs by integrating multiple climate parameters into one precise flexible sensor. The WS501 and WS301 will measure global irradiance in addition to wind, temperature, humidity and air pressure (WS501) or temperature, humidity and air pressure (WS301). The climate parameters are extremely accurate and calibrated to international standards of quality and accuracy ISO17025/9001. Data is transmitted via RS485/RS232 digital stream or analog channels (with additional hardware).

Lufft decided to integrate the Kipp and Zonen CMP3 sensor into the WS501 and WS301 weather stations. The decision to use Kipp and Zonen pyranometers came after a partnership with the company where Lufft often sells Kipp and Zonen pyranometers as an accessory part to an existing weather station. "It just makes sense to have an all in one sensor with solar radiation present", said Klaus Hirzel of G. Lufft Fellbach Germany. " The decision to work with Kipp and Zonen is like saying ‘Intel Inside' for computer processors. K&Z is a global standard for solar radiation measurement." The CMP3 was chosen instead of the SPLITE, CMP 6, and CMP11 sensors because it strikes a balance between functionality and low cost. The purpose of the WS501 and WS301 sensors are to provide a low cost solution for a wide variety of applications. Adding higher class sensor is possible, but not standard.
Lufft is a manufacturer of high quality German weather monitoring equipment operating for the last 125 years. The highly regarded WS series of compact weather stations by Lufft are unrivaled in price to performance ratio. Lufft WS sensors are now compatible with most any model of Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) that communicates via MODBUS data stream. The compact and efficient weather stations also can be configured via ASCII digital language, SDI-12, UMB, NMEA automatic telegram or analog. WS200-WS600 and VENTUS/V200A ultrasonic anemometer models are designed with different levels of functionality to meet specific weather monitoring needs of any application. The top-of-the-range model, the WS600, measures temperature, humidity, precipitation, air pressure, wind direction and wind speed. The robust VENTUS model is ideal for wind turbine applications as it includes a 240W heater for use in cold weather climates. All models are covered to protect from the elements and can be integrated into any building control system.