Sandaysoft

I was thinking of increasing the size so that it would register light showers, which it misses at the moment. Only problem might be overload in a deluge. Does anyone know the maximum rainfall rate the present unit will take?

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Gina

Sorry, no banner - weather station out of action. Hoping to be up and running with a new home-made one soon.

I think I've got the answer to that myself. Yesterday when I was trying new positions for the temperature and rain gauge I got interference from an electric fence - a pulse about once per second and that gave a rainfall reading (1000mm/hr) something like a hundred times the UK record! I figure the buckets and electronics are well able to cope with anything we might get in this country with a 3x increase in catchment area.

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Gina

Sorry, no banner - weather station out of action. Hoping to be up and running with a new home-made one soon.

here's what I built. Its just a funnel cut back to a 13.8cm diameter glued into a container I had lying around. It just sits over the existing gauge. I also have a manual rain gauge so if we ever get any rain I'll see how close it is. My calibration is .33

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Cheers

Phil

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~storerfamily/weather
http://www.seabreeze.com.au/graphs/sa.asp

I discovered the other day that my rogue 0.3mm readings, which occurred on very still days, were due to birds landing on it (the gauge is near the bird feeder)

I've nearly finished my modified rain gauge. I'll take a photo of it tomorrow. Only other thing I want to do to it is add a thermostat controlled heater to melt snow and stop icing up. Circuit designed, now I need a couple of components and to make it up. Snowing heavily here and has been since late afternoon.

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Gina

Sorry, no banner - weather station out of action. Hoping to be up and running with a new home-made one soon.

Look like the rain sensor is a built in problem with the magnet and reed switch (and spiders which were doing loop-the-loop last night when I was changing the battries).

http://www.digitalham.co.uk/equipment/Watson_W8681.php

I'd just like to point out rainfall isn't uniform even over a very small area. It can vary quite a bit (try putting out a few gauges of the same type in a particular area). In the PWS photo shown here, wouldn't the rain catcher be shaded somewhat by the close proximity of the rest of the station to it anyway, giving yo less accuracy with wind blowing from certain directions?

I've placed mine well away from the other sensors and from trees and bushes etc.

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Gina

Sorry, no banner - weather station out of action. Hoping to be up and running with a new home-made one soon.