Considering that we are once again approaching the SNOW season, I thought I would revive this thread with a few photos of my heater installation.
I went a little further with this method and ran the element around the "cone" of the collector too. I get a GREAT melt rate by doing this, and no issues with temp changes on the VP2. We have another VP2 .7 miles from my site that has the Davis VP2 heater installed. My rain totals were right in line with that station during last year's snow storms, BUT my rain rate was much higher indicating that the Davis heater has a much slower melt rate than this much more affordable alternative!
The only problem I had with my original installation was that after leaving it up through summer, the duct tape I had used to secure the cord to the "cone" melted due to the heat of the sun. This resulted in that entire coil coming loose and falling down on top of my tipping buckets! To eliminate this from happening again, I removed the tape and as much of the tape glue as I could, and then reattached the element using 5 minute epoxy. I also bought a second rain bucket from Davis, so that I don't have to leave the heated version up during the summer when it is not needed, and when the inside of the bucket can get VERY hot due to the summer sun.
I am using the Thermo-Cube to handle the on and off duties. This way, I can flip the wall switch for the power cord ON when the threat of snow looms, and not have to worry about the heater coming on until the temp falls below 35F.
Lastly, I wanted thank mrgpk for originally posting this GREAT IDEA!
Not only is this far cheaper than the Davis element, I think it actually works BETTER!