over recording of rainfall

[petec2]

I have a VP2 working fine for 5 months but last night it recorded far too much rain. one bucket tip was giving very high figures (>30mm). when i checked inside the unit the reed switch was coated with water and the 'swinging bar' was wet too. i dried both (carefully) and the unit is now recording one tip as 0.2mm (correctly)

it has been very windy here -maybe shaking the rain bucket? but i have a couple of queries:

1. how did the reed switch get so wet?
2. can i modify the data i collect for weatherlinkip? -it now has a mad high seasonal total of 400mm+ and there's only been 40mm


all the best

pete

[C5250]

1. Don't know

2. I would suggest editing the rainfall totals in the console, that might correct them downstream (it depends on whether the totals are stored, or the current values from the console are used).

[wmcatty]

How much movement do you have on your mast Pete?  If it is more than an inch or so in a moderate wind, you might consider some guy wires if they are not already installed.  You might also want to share what type of system configuration you have so that others will have a more accurate picture of what to analyze and make recommendations on.

[petec2]

thanks. the iss is mounted on a metal pole (usually used for small tv satellite dish). pole is in ground in concrete but it vibrates in high winds. i am replacing it with a sturdier pole this week. i fear the vibration is the problem and it has been windy and very wet.

the iss reports to a weather envoy (then via a weatherlink ip datalogger to the web) -all davies. the iss also reports to a vantage pro console where i have a second datalogger. the second logger i read using weatherlink for mac (I have edited that database and rubbed out the erroneous readings of yesterday -the iss is reporting fine at the moment)

the envoy logger sends data to weatherlinkip and i download that via the web using pc software. it is the data on the web (that appears on my davies weatherlink website) that i would correct if i could -though it's not essential.

thanks for the comments

pete

[d_l]

When you say seasonal rainfall, do you mean the annual amount?  If so, have you tried correcting the annual rainfall amount in the copy of Weatherlink that connects to the WLIP?

I recently set up a new WLIP near the end of last year,  I edited the yearly rainfall in the WL (windows) that connected to the WLIP and after a while the the WLIP (within a day, don't remember exactly how long it took) began sending the corrected annual amount to the Davis servers instead of the zero it started with.

[petec2]

Thanks Dave. I have edited the rainfall in wl (5.9.3) on my pc. i will see if that corrected data now replaces that on the davies server (?- or do i need to do this manually). yes the seasonal sum is that for 2012 - i have edited the wl database and will see what happens

i also installed a serious metal pole in garden and will get concrete poured in this week. the error comes when the iss is shaken in strong winds -i watched it. if there is water in the tipping cup it gets shaken out and over the edge onto the surface of the reed switch. only happens if iss shaken west-east (the solar panels face due south)

pete

[d_l]

Pete, just to be clear here because I wasn't specific about where to edit the yearly rain in WL, there are actually two places to edit.  The one you want to correct the Davis web site is under Setup>Set Yearly Rain.  That should change the Davis site promptly (within the next WL current update?).

This comes straight from Davis tech support.  I had to fix my yearly rainfall on an older WLIP a year ago.  A review of old emails with them reminded me about the possibility you might have just changed the rainfall under Reports>Yearly Rainfall which won't change anything on the Davis site.

Sorry if you had any confusion about this.

[petec2]

thanks dave. i had real problems setting up the envoy in the first place. i could not get the ip address of my hard wired ethernet connection on the (wireless with 4 hard ethernet connections) router for ages -i kept getting tcp/ip errors. eventually i sorted it but probably locally -'local device id'. so i download data for wlip via 'web download' rather than 'remote ip address'. i don't think that the 'web download' method will update the external data.

i will sort it later - work intervenes

pete

[bro931]

FYI, I had to recalibrate my Vantage Pro 2 tipping bucket.  It was registering about 15% higher than a standard 11" cylinder gauge next to it.  That is, when rainfall was light or moderate.  For frog-strangling thunderstorm rains, it was sometimes right on the money.  Sensitivity of tipping buckets to precip intensity is a known problem.  It seems that the time it takes for the bucket to actually tip can cause the device to register less precip.