Topic: Least Expensive Way to Get Rainfall to Underground

[WX4GPS]

First off thank you for reading. I know there is a weather enthusiast with like minds on here.   Here is my goal, I purchased several Texas Electronics Rain Gauges 525USW.  Rainfall is critical for this mission.  But  the last half of the equation has to be done super cost effective. I need to interface rain gauge only to some way to get the data to be viewable online, I have chosen weather underground for its wide acceptence.  But now I am trying to settle on that bridge.   Here has been some thoughts:

I know Peet bros station have appeared inexpensive used and they offer an easy way to interface any tipping bucket, but then I can probably interface to a raspberry pi Ono wifi and get the rainfall only data to Wunderground.  But I probably looking at over $130 with a used station and a pi.
I saw no solutions where I could hook up the gauge directly to a GPIO port and run software on a pi to do this at this time.
So I cam up with an idea of these EcoWitt Gateway for $25 they say they send to Wunderground, and I thought of buying the Ecowitt rain ague and tearing down the gauge and put the transmitter into the Texas Electronics since it probably uses a reed switch to report rainfall.  I know my range would be reduced a bit being in a metal gauge but Im not asking for very far distance, maybe 25 feet.  I think this could be done for under $100 and possibly less if I can get some used EcoWitt gauges with good transmitters to tear out.

If there some method I have not thought of?  We are trying to develop an inexpensive Rainfall Network when there is excessive rainfall with as best accurate gauges we can get, but some how get near real time. All sites will be located next to home with wifi. I even think the Ecowitt can sent alerts out if parameters are exceeded, that is a big plus.   Anyone familiar with EcoWitt bridge to wunderground and these alerts, does this sound like the right direction...    Thank you for any suggestions or input.

Ron

[galfert]

A couple of thoughts....

- If you don't have complete data then Weather Underground will not work. I believe you have to have temperature data or it will just not work. But I'm not certain if you also need wind or not. There are some minimum sensors that are required and I think you should look into that.

- If you gut the Ecowitt rain gauge to use with a different rain gauge be aware that you'll have to figure out some calibration due to funnel and spoon tipper size differences. Even if this is not imposible it may not produce the best results.

[WX4GPS]

Yeah I am trying to figure out if the spoon measures in mm or .01 inches per tip, if its in MM Ill have to see if the EcoWitt Gateway allow you to apply a calibration to bring it back to a correct reading, Im starting to thing this option may not be the best.

Ron

[WSWeather]

I believe you have to have temperature data or it will just not work. But I'm not certain if you also need wind or not. There are some minimum sensors that are required and I think you should look into that.

There are hundreds if not thousands of WU-reporting PWS without either wind or rain data.  There are none without temperature and humidity.

[WX4GPS]

No I can easily incorporate that parameter If need be, I am trying to determine if the EcoWitt Rain Gauges are calibrated to 0.01" tips or if I will have to recalibrate the gauges