good morning
a few weeks ago i installed some new hardware a Oregon WMR300 , I first built a solar powered FARS made from some beige white plastic dishes from the local diy store
i paid around $3 and used a small solar panel to recharge the 4xAA duracell batteries with a 6v fan it works extremely well and is quite efficient however I need to do some redesign on the solar power side to make it fully weatherproof(rain/snow) .
so as a short term substitute I bought two plastic wall vents for aprox $2 when calculated from local currency (9tl) then glued them together and then inserted two screws to hold them firmly together as you can see in the photograph .
the result is quite amazing really as at a certain time a day 1pm to 4pm the sun here in istanbul is still strong and warm at this time of year and directly hits one side of the original sensor shield especially noticeable as the sun is lower in the sky as it declines.
the outcome was measured for a few days during this time of day using the change in temperature over short periods .
without it I was able to just shift it out of position for periods and noticed anywhere between 0.5 to 1.2c increases over a 15 minute period before it stabilised when sun was directly shining on it.
with it in position as shown in photograph the temperature change was dramaticly lower never going above 0.5c increase at anytime during a 15 minute period .
I monitored this for a week (5 days) and came to conclusion probably best $2 i ever spent
mounting it offset allows plenty of airflow through the ventilation slots and in between the original reduces any warm air getting trapped between .
its survived 80kmh winds over the weekend so it wont fall or break up.
thought some may find it useful or inspire some to improve or share there homemade designs but for $2 nothing to lose on this one . Hopefully once I get some time to weatherproof (rain) my homemade FARS will publish something about that with some photos of the solar powered battery source compartment..
brian..