Weather Station Hardware > Hydreon RG-11 Optical Rain Gauge/Sensor

Replaced Lens

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miraculon:
I ordered a new lens and O-ring for my Hydreon. It was beginning to looks like some of those old car headlights, fogged and yellowed.

The new one is nice and clear, so I hope that I get better results. It was "working", but I suspect that the performance was degraded due to the lens deterioration.

No drama, lens swap was easily accomplished.

Greg H.

DaleReid:
Greg,
I assume the lens was less than a headlight restore kit at the local ACE hardware?  Just kidding.

What's your experience been with the gizmo?  Were you just using it for Raining/NotRaining or trying to do some degree of estimated rainfall?

Vaisala has a (expensive) sensor all-in-one that uses a little stainless steel or chrome cap that apparently 'hears' drops of rain it and estimates their size and frequency and does a raingauge function.  I wish I had one to fiddle with, but wonder if this is something similar?
 Dale

miraculon:

--- Quote from: DaleReid on October 01, 2017, 04:22:29 PM ---Greg,
I assume the lens was less than a headlight restore kit at the local ACE hardware?  Just kidding.

What's your experience been with the gizmo?  Were you just using it for Raining/NotRaining or trying to do some degree of estimated rainfall?

Vaisala has a (expensive) sensor all-in-one that uses a little stainless steel or chrome cap that apparently 'hears' drops of rain it and estimates their size and frequency and does a raingauge function.  I wish I had one to fiddle with, but wonder if this is something similar?
 Dale

--- End quote ---

I use it for detecting rain onset. I have it interfaced to a Davis "ISS", which was a Temp/Hum station originally. My meteohub monitors it via an Envoy 8x as an ISS.

The Hydreon is set for 0.001" per tip which gives me a reasonable rain detection via the Davis. I considered the higher sensitivities, but figured that having the relay beat itself to death wasn't a good idea either.

The Lens was $20 (USD). I tried "Plexus" which helped, but didn't go the full nine yards with the fine grit wet sandpapers and UV coating spray. My son and I tried one of those headlight kits on his PT Cruiser, which didn't work at all. We resorted to the wet sand method and it looked a lot better, but he wound up getting new headlights.

I figured for $20, it was worth it. (actually $23 since I got the O-ring too, plus shipping of $5). Still, half the price of a new one, and the guts work fine.

The technology looks for a change in the optics caused by raindrops. This is from rainsensors.com:



Greg H.

johnd:

--- Quote from: DaleReid on October 01, 2017, 04:22:29 PM ---Vaisala has a (expensive) sensor all-in-one that uses a little stainless steel or chrome cap that apparently 'hears' drops of rain it and estimates their size and frequency and does a raingauge function. 
--- End quote ---

I think that there should be a new cheaper one available soon from:

http://www.disdro.com/

Doesn't look like it's quite ready to release just yet, but I hear that it's close.

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