Rain Guage

[5546dug]

@BulldogLowell this has been quite a project to watch unfold and develop into just the greatest project. I am learning more just following you programing wizards, than I learn surfing . Thanks for the project and the inside tracks on programming etc.
I have got my tripping gage back from my local 3d hub shop and the job looks good I hope to have it running hardware and soft before I return to and take it to Florida this fall.

[hek]

@BulldogLowell , @petewill

A page for your new creation has been deployed here:
http://www.mysensors.org/build/rain

Please let me know if I missed something or spelling needs to be corrected.

[petewill]

@hek Looks great! Thanks!

[blacey]

@petewill - another outstanding tutorial video.

[petewill]

@blacey Thanks! Couldn't have done it without @BulldogLowell and @hek

[hek]

@petewill, @BulldogLowell

Received my off the shelf tipping bucket sensor today. http://www.ebay.com/itm/331525977548?rmvSB=true

To my surprise it contained a dummy 2xAAA battery compartment. It might be possible to squeeze in a sensebender and nrf-radio (with some slight modification).

[petewill]

@hek Cool! Looks like you may even have some room on the other side if you can figure out a way to waterproof it?

[coffeeaddict]

@hek said:

@petewill, @BulldogLowell

Received my off the shelf tipping bucket sensor today. http://www.ebay.com/itm/331525977548?rmvSB=true

To my surprise it contained a dummy 2xAAA battery compartment. It might be possible to squeeze in a sensebender and nrf-radio (with some slight modification).

@hek
Did you ever wire this up with sensebender & radio squeezed in?
I have this same guage I want to use with sensebender

[hek]

No, never had time to finish my rain gauge this summer.

But it should be doable. But the big pcb in there has to be modified, or even better is probably to move the reed switch directly to the sensebender.

[coffeeaddict]

@hek said:

No, never had time to finish my rain gauge this summer.

But it should be doable. But the big pcb in there has to be modified, or even better is probably to move the reed switch directly to the sensebender.

ok thanks

[mrc-core]

Hi.
i'm having some trouble whit my rain gauge...

My rain gauge is a Aercus KW9015, using the code provided i'm getting rain count every hour whit no rain at all.
I don't know what to do to fix this.

Over the rain gauge i have 4 connections.
1 - GND
2 - TX1 --- Temperature sensor
3 - TX2 --- Rain sensor
4 - VCC

Why i'm i getting reads of rain ever 1h when there is no rain ?
Can anyone help me whit this problem ?

[petewill]

@mrc-core
Are you actually getting a rain value or is it just sending 0? The code is designed to send an update to your gateway every hour with the total rain for the day whether there is rain or not.

[mrc-core]

Some times i do get value 0 but other times i get rain value a big rain value for example values above 10mm of rain.
The update is made every hour. Yesterday the rain value was 148mm when there was no rain at all. It doesn't rain for the last month.

Ill try today reassembling the arduino, clear cd rom and flash again the rain gauge code.

But i don't understand why i get this values.
I even beleaved that the sensor was sendind data because off the wind... but it's not the problem.

[BulldogLowell]

@mrc-core

how is it connected electronically?

[mrc-core]

At the rain gauge i have an arduino nano conneting PIN "d3" to TX2 over the rain gauge circuit, the arduino is powered at pins VIN and GND.
The rain gauge gets its power from the 3.3V over the arduino.

im posting two images from the rain gauge circuit:

Starting to believe i had connect someting rong like for example had switched TX1 and TX2 at the rain gauge

[mrc-core]

Looking over the IMG_2 should i connect arduino pin d3 to T1 just above the reed switch?
Or i'm i correct using the TX2 connection.

[BulldogLowell]

@mrc-core

No PULLUP or PULLDOWN resistor?

[mrc-core]

no i cant find any pullup or pulldown resistor.
You can see the images from de interior of the rain gauge hi have.

[mrc-core]

Which resistor do i pu between the 5v and the D3 pin ???

[BulldogLowell]

@mrc-core

if you don't pull up/down the signal, you may get floating voltages and spurious interrupts occurring.

try to use the internal pullup

pinMode(yourInterruptPin, INPUT_PULLUP);

if that does not work try an external 10kOhm resistor to pull it up/down for your switch.