I bought a wind speed sensor via the link provided (Amazon UK) in your tutorial. Alas, it has four wires and not three. I connected the yellow signal wire to a multimeter  and it gives off about 10 volts, regardless of whether it’s spinning or not. Any suggestions?

Hi.
Can you send me the link for the exact wind sensor that you got?
Regards,
Sara

Hi Sara, here’s the link:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09JFQKVWX?tag=makeradvisor-21&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1
This is the link I sent to the person who bought it for me.  Hope this helps
Regards
Mike

Hi.
I’m not sure if that sensor is compatible. Instead of measuring on the yellow line, measure on the blue one. Rotate the sensor and see if you get reasonable values.
If you don’t, I think this wind sensor is not compatible because it probably uses a different communication protocol than the one we use in the tutorial.
 
Let me know your findings.
 
Regards,
Sara

Hi Sara, thanks for your assistance. The blue wire is internally connected to the black ground wire. I’ve spent a few days, with the help of ChatGPT, trying every which way to connect the thing. I’ve been able to detect voltage, current and pulses, but non of these measurements seem to be affected by spinning it. I’m fairly confident that the thing is not working properly, so I’ve sent it back. To be honest, whoever made this deserves to get it back on account of the awful user manual, which is very badly, and only partially translated from Chinese. I’ll be a bit more careful when I choose a new one, and then I’ll get back to your lesson.  Loving your books, by the way.  Thanks
Mike

Hi Mike.
I’m afraid you might have gotten one that uses RS485 communication, even though that is not mentioned don the product page on the link.
You can get that one to work (hopefully) by using a RS485 to UART converter and then reading the serial data like in this tutorial that I found: https://www.instructables.com/Measuring-Wind-Speed-With-the-RS485-Sensor-SEN0483/
 
Unfortunately, many times it’s quite difficult to get the correct sensor because the sellers don’t provide all the necessary information on the page. 
 
If you can get one from adafruit, this one is exactly like ours (but ours has different output voltage): https://www.adafruit.com/product/1733
 
Regards,
Sara

Additionally, I searched a bit more and this sensor seems to be compatible if you want to try another one from Amazon. (the model labelled as 0-5V). With the color name: SWS06-A-V5

Hi Sara, thanks for your continued efforts. Alas, here in the North of Scotland, delivery charges are often >= to the cost of the item. Luckily, I was able to get the exact Adafruit model that you suggested from DigiKey Uk for a reasonable price and free delivery AND A DATASHEET. I think you can now consider this question to be resolved. Many many thanks for all your assistance.

That’s great.
I’ll mark this issue as resolved. If you need further help, you just need to open a new question in our forum.
Regards,
Sara

Thanks