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Davis Vantage Pro2 Weather Station Rain Gauge goes mad sometimes


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I have recently installed a Davis Vantage Pro2 in the harbour here in Lyme Regis. It has mostly worked very well but twice now the rain gauge has suddenly gone wild and I have been trying to find out what could be causing it. The symtoms are that suddenly the rainfall starts incrementing constantly (see chart below) at about 7"/hr. The weather station connects to the Vantage Pro console via a wireless link. The chart is actually from Weather Display live but I have checked back at the console and confirmed the same rainfall has been recorded there. After a while it suddenly goes back to normal. I will be taking a look at the rain bucket in the next few days but it's not easy to get at (mounted on the harbour master's office roof).

 

So I wondered if anyone else had ever experienced this before or had any ideas what I should look out for.

 

Of course when it goes wrong all the cumulative yearly, monthly, daily figures become skewed and it is a real pain getting them all corrected.

The weather station can be viewd at www.lymeregis.org/webcams/live-weather-station/ (there is a non-flash version for iPad etc.).

Posted Image

 

Many thanks

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Posted
  • Location: North York Moors
  • Location: North York Moors

When you say recently installed, is it still under warranty?If so you may as well send the unit back, however it is probably the reed switch and they are not overly difficult to replace.This is a suitable replacemnet so far as I knowhttp://www.maplin.co.uk/p/assemtech-microminiature-reed-switch-no-cl36p

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Thank you for your reply. Yes, it is still under warranty but unfortunately it was bought from The Weather Shop which went into liquidation just after it was delivered. I am going to contact the new owners of the Weather Shop website (Tempcon Instrumentation Ltd) when they are back to work to see if they can help as distributers of Davis equipment.

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Posted
  • Location: Poole, Dorset 42m ASL
  • Location: Poole, Dorset 42m ASL

Thank you for your reply. Yes, it is still under warranty but unfortunately it was bought from The Weather Shop which went into liquidation just after it was delivered. I am going to contact the new owners of the Weather Shop website (Tempcon Instrumentation Ltd) when they are back to work to see if they can help as distributers of Davis equipment.

Welcome on board as a new dorset weather reporter.

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Posted
  • Location: West Kingsdown Kent
  • Location: West Kingsdown Kent

hi , had that sort of thing happen and it was leaves and other bits stuck in bucket. it would let a consant feed of water in then stop or a flood in a few seconds hope thats the problem.

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Posted
  • Location: Rayleigh, Essex
  • Location: Rayleigh, Essex

Since putting my weather station up on the end of a long pole (used 1 inch box steel pole thing from Wickes) it wobbles a bit from side to side (only an inch or two) in strong winds and that shaking action triggers the rain fall measuring thing. I didn't know what it was until one dry windy day I saw it registering heavy rain and so sat and watched it.

 

I need to mount it on the top of the house really but changing the batteries will be awkward then!

Edited by SteveCoops
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  • 5 years later...

I have a Davis Vantage Pro2 which I installed two years ago. I am currently watching the console and the daily rain amount is steadily increasing and there is nothing but blue sky overhead. 
from the beginning the unit has not lived up to expectation. The rainfall has never been correct compared to an old fashion plastic rain gauge and all efforts to calibrate the tipping cups has been unsuccessful. The anemometer has progressively deteriorated until it is completely useless. The only useful information it provides is temp., humidity and barometric pressure. In my opinion this unit is completely a waste of money. 
The problems cannot be blamed on lack of maintenance as routine inspection of the unit is done on a regular basis and I am knowledgeable of the things that need attention.

I would never recommend this unit and will try to find something more dependable. 

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Posted
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield
  • Weather Preferences: Any Extreme
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield

Rainfall depends on the reed switch and I had the first failure after more than ten years of using Davis equipment. It's easy to replace though and very cheap to do so. A quick soldering iron job even in difficult conditions outside. The tipping bucket isn't very reliable by it's very nature although the new cone helps quite a bit little. I certainly wouldn't use it to submit data to the met office as you can't accurately offset the error as this depends on the intensity of the rain and if the unit is installed poorly shaking by the wind. Interestingly netamo do a tipping bucket which seems a lot more accurate than the Davis. In Theory you should be able to install any tipping bucket instead of the Davis unit as it simply breaks the contact. Overall though I doubt very much that the any alternatives would be as accurate as the old fashioned method.

Davis Anemometer moved away from the reed switch was was totally useless and failed on a regular basis. The new unit is much more reliable and I had to replace it once when the sun got to the plastic housing and caused it to crack. I thinks it's now possible to get replacement housing for the unit. So apart from the sun it's been up on the roof working perfectly for 5 years possibly more. The downside it's on the roof which is a pain the royal ass when it does need replacing as you got to get someone willing to go up and take it down. Very few people who do TV stuff will go on the roof and take it down due to not being covered by insurance. I now have a pole in the garden 20 feet which has the Netamo anemometer installed. Next time it fails I will simply transfer the Davis to the pole which I can lower so making maintenance easy.

The only downside tot eh vp2 I find is the blowing supercap again easy to replace but is a design flaw so I'm probably due to replace those again soon. It'll blow on a wet unsettled period no doubt.

I won't go elsewhere though as other stations just don't have the accuracy or the speed to report the data. Casella now look better on paper and the prices seem to have come down so possible a better choice now where before they were so expensive it was a no go. Maybe worth looking at them.

Davis have also been taken over recently which may bring better products in the future.

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Posted
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield
  • Weather Preferences: Any Extreme
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield
On 09/01/2014 at 12:41, SteveCoops said:

Since putting my weather station up on the end of a long pole (used 1 inch box steel pole thing from Wickes) it wobbles a bit from side to side (only an inch or two) in strong winds and that shaking action triggers the rain fall measuring thing. I didn't know what it was until one dry windy day I saw it registering heavy rain and so sat and watched it.

 

I need to mount it on the top of the house really but changing the batteries will be awkward then!

I don't know how much space you've got in the garden but you could get a tripod steel guy ropes and that will stop the thing from shaking. My 20 foot pole doesn't move in strong gusts now that I've moved to steel cabling.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield
  • Weather Preferences: Any Extreme
  • Location: Sheffield South Yorkshire 160M Powering the Sheffield Shield

Spoke too soon woke this morning zero wind speed. Looks like it has jammed so I suspect the sun has got the plastic once again or something else. Anyway since a total pain to get somebody to go up on the roof and remove the darn thing and guided by a ultrasonic unit and stick this on the pole in the garden. More damned expense grrrr.

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