$99 Missed Rain Event #2

OK ~ so we don't get many weather events here in So Cal.  and this rain guage works great...as long as it does not rain!  The first part of this weekend's storm  it properly reported ~ .12-Inches. 

The main rain came Friday night and it was reading 0" since midnight ( it had been steadily falling throuought the night) Again, I noted a large ( +3" ) reading on the previous day's graph.  What is going on here? 

OK I have a theory now!  When I went back up on the roof and inspected ~ this time no spiders would be spared~  I noticed some interesting things.  First the RG was still there and not blown over in the wind as I feared. Second it did not seem to be sitting level? 

I built a mall leveling platform out of a small rectangle of plywood, with another strip at one end to prop up the platform, since this is on the  "flat roof" part over a porch the slope is very small and needed only a 1/4" - 1/2" rise on one side to make it level. After I built this platform I primed and painted it and screwed the RG into it. It is not attached in anyway to the roof.

So here is what I think is going on:  As the platform gets wet, the bottom side stays wet and the top side dries causing the board to warp. As it warps, it finally starts to move the tipper so it is at a critical angle that causes the sensor to begin flickering causing the big totals.  This goes on until the angle become so great the tipper will no longer move past the sensor.

It gets worse...The gauge had some water in it, AND it no longer transmits as well.  SO here is what may have happened:  Since the tipping bucket was now shifted to one side the rain was deflected along it in a fully tipped position, some of the rain did not properly exit the device and accumulated inside it.

I will dry everything out and make a new platform.  I thought the paint would protect the wood, but looks like it needs another type of material or better protection.

$99 Weather Station..."Part 2 - Deux "

I noticed that after the rain reset incedent, the outdoor temp was not cycling...oh yeah, I tried a re-scan, you need to push the channel switch, ahhh there it is!  Once more to have it cycle indoor and outdoor...all is well! 

Hey wait, how did i miss that the outdoor Temp has a RH% as well!  OK so I only need to read the pressure locally.   Ok, I confess the bi-lingual manual was sitting next to the console I would not have figured it out so fast - and- about the channel search: the manual says if  the device picks up a second channel, ignore it?  Interesting.

$99 Weather Station..."Part Deux"

I see they are now in the $80 range ...oh well for once I am an early adopter?  I am thinking that this was made for Celestron by LaCrosse.  It has that look and feel to it.  There are another bunch of cheap wx stations appearing in various catalogues.  I picked up a wireless Rain Gauge at the Home Despot ...for about 30 bucks when I put in my new lawn to monitor the watering  last year.  It stopped working after about a week.  

Anyway, I hope to see the familiar 44-bit packets as shown in  Jean-Paul ROUBELAT - F6FBB (a Fench Ham) post at : http://www.f6fbb.org/domo/sensors/tx3_th.php 

The wireless snoop will give me a second source of wind speed and direction, and an extra outdoor temp located in that sensor as well.  Pressure and RH%  are most likely locally measured in the console. 

The pressure and RH% were real easy to read on the PIC weather station using an A/D converter and a couple OpAmps.  I should have no problem porting these  to the new APRS WxServer. 

I am a little cautious of relying entirely on this station's wind sensor it seems more flimsy than the Dallas Semi 1-Wire, which started having issues after about a year of operation, the speed sensor would "stick" and when it broke free again it would sometimes give a huge false wind spike (50+ MPH) When I took it down I found that the plastic around the bearings simply went out of round causing the axial to wobble.

It will be a happy day if I see these as there is a Practical Adrino Post by Marc Alexander and Jonathan Oxer ~that should do most, if not all, of the heavy lifting on the decode! 

Celestron $99 Wx Station

The $99 Celestron wx station from OPT has been up and running since Sept.  I have been wanting a rain guage for the Davis but it was almost as much as this whole thing!  It has been working great. Until.... last weekend we had a small rain but I noticed the rain total was not counting.   Then I nioticed  a huge  rain total eariler in the week ( a huge High Pressure system with 8" rain we did not notice  ~I think not)  I went up on the roof and took a look... visions that it got blown over or something.

There was a huge spider living under the leveling platform but every thing seemed OK I tipped it a couple times as well.  I checked  the batteries and they were amost still new ( 1.49V) This guy must have been running  back and fourth on the tipper or a bird was trying to get him or something! Too funny.

Now I need to hack the wireless link to get rain and other data for the APRS. The beauty of wireless hack is the display gets the data as well and I don't have to come up with a fancy display.  Yesterday,  I   found a pretty interesting looking little receiver from Digikey that will likely be able to hear this simple RF stream. (simple = not spread spectrum) :

The  ALPHA-RX433S looks real flexible. It will need to be programmed via SPI ..no dip switches...but it will be hooked to the Arduino anyway ...and for $6 bucks?  Yeah, worth a try.  I also found a helical antenna... ANT-433-PW-LP  sure  a wire will do just fine for receive but this is too cool: (for $2 - why not?)  If this dosen't work maybe  I'll get the transmitter as well and will have a new toy to play with...sending data and stuff...

This station is probabily made by another manufacturer and  branded  by Celestron so this will most likely work with other wireless stations.  Stay tuned....

PS. No spider was harmed during this repair ~ Ilive and let live I say~  But I am pretty sure it was his web that caused the bucket to stop tipping.  but  the extra rain count is still a mystery....