Topic: VP2 rain measurements added more than 50 inches

[shakasha]

On April 8th we had about 0.04 inch of rain. Somehow our Davis VP2 Pro went crazy seeming to be stuck for a few hours showing about 13 inches of rain an hour and ended up with over 58 inches for the day. 

Number 1, I'd love to know what happened so that maybe we can prevent it from happening again.

Number 2, I'd love to be able to reset those numbers on WeatherLink.com.

Any ideas?

Thank you!
Rob

[Mattk]

You have a resident frog or spider that likes playing on the tipper

However as it was during some rain then maybe there was a small stick, twig, piece of grass stuck down the cone causing the tipper to flutter and not tip properly?

Those numbers easy to reset in WeatherLink software but rather difficult on WeatherLink.com without some Davis intervention. The one number that can easily be reset on WeatherLink.com is the rain total. 

[Dane_B]

On April 8th we had about 0.04 inch of rain. Somehow our Davis VP2 Pro went crazy seeming to be stuck for a few hours showing about 13 inches of rain an hour and ended up with over 58 inches for the day. 

Number 1, I'd love to know what happened so that maybe we can prevent it from happening again.

Number 2, I'd love to be able to reset those numbers on WeatherLink.com.

Any ideas?

Thank you!
Rob

I had this on one occasion. The magnetic reed switch failed so I replaced it with a new one. Immediately afterwards I started to get erroneous rain readings such as you indicate.Turned out to be a bad reed switch. Possibly picking up vibrations? Anyway, I replaced the reed switch a second time and all was good again. You can find reed switches on Ebay. Make sure if you get one there it is a N.O. switch. Alternatively, call Davis and tell them you need a reed switch for the rain tipping bucket.

[johnd]

Somehow our Davis VP2 Pro went crazy seeming to be stuck for a few hours showing about 13 inches of rain an hour and ended up with over 58 inches for the day. 

The commonest cause is moisture ingress into the rain gauge wiring, usually at the plug/socket inside the SIM compartment, though potentially anywhere in the wiring from the reed switch.

Some other causes like a faulty reed switch or some physical obstruction of the tipper mechanism like stalks, insects, ice etc have been mentioned by others.

[W3DRM]

Rob, based on you profile you live in Gulfport, Florida so I suspect that Johnd is correct with moisture being the culprit. With warmer days and cooler days being perfect conditions for condensation (inside the VP and outside too) that can cause corrosion of the plugs and receptacles inside the SIM box. The other thing to check carefully is to make certain you don't have a leaky antenna. The rubber covering on the Davis VP has been known to get cracks which will allow rain and moisture to get inside and flow down into the SIM box. You haven't said how old your VP2 is but I know they did make updates to the antenna itself a while back due to leaks.