I got one of these merely so I could check intermediate rainfall totals
without having to go out & get wet.

I've noticed that it seems to under-read, especially for low rainfall
totals, and I had to change the clock, otherwise the daily totals reset
at midnight.
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)

On Sat, 03 Mar 2007 18:17:00 GMT, Paul Hyett wrote:

I got one of these merely so I could check intermediate rainfall totals
without having to go out & get wet.

I've noticed that it seems to under-read, especially for low rainfall
totals, and I had to change the clock, otherwise the daily totals reset
at midnight.

I've had one of those for a couple of months. I also get the feeling that
it under-reads but have had nothing to compare it with. It also does funny
things - it added last night's rain total (early hours of today) to it's
weekly total but it's day's total (today) remains at zero.

Never mind - I got a Davis Vantage Pro 2 a couple of days ago :-) I'll
leave the Maplins rain gauge running and compare the 2 rain readings when
we next get rain. Will post the results.
--
Regards,

Hugh Jampton

I posted this back last May. Since then, it seems to under-read fairly
consistently by 10-20%; February 88.3 mm by standard gauge, 80 mm by
wireless 1 mm:

--

I've had two 0.2 mm TBRs logged to my AWS for several years now, and
they typically under-record between 1 and 3% compared to my adjacent
Met O standard 5 inch gauge. This is probably about the best one can
expect as these are professional class instruments (both belong to
the
Environment Agency) and are regularly calibrated. The slight error
most
probably results from some loss due to differences in wetting of the
funnels, and in evaporation of the part-filled bucket contents.

As a matter of interest, three months back I purchased one of the
wireless 1 mm capacity tipping bucket gauges referenced in the first
post on this thread. I hasten to add I use this only for
distant-reading purposes, not climatology! After careful calibration,
I
found the 1 mm tip was surprisingly accurate for an inexpensive
instrument (within 4%, which was as accurate as I could measure the
volume of water poured in while I counted the tips). Daily totals
show
good agreement with the checkgauge when more than 2-3 mm falls, but
where it loses out are small falls ( 0.5 mm or so), especially a day
or two apart, where they simply evaporate and are lost to the record.


Monthly totals from both gauges compared with my standard gauge have
been (making slight adjustments to bring them all to 09-09h UTC
terminal hours):


March - checkgauge 50.9 mm (=100%), TBR 1 49.7 mm (97.6%), wireless
gauge
40 mm (79%)
April - checkgauge 34.3 mm (=100%), TBR 1 34.3 mm (100%), wireless
gauge
30 mm (87%)


I would recommend one of these little instruments, even if you have
an
AWS. They are great for watching thunderstorm rainfall tick up whilst
enjoying the lightning in the comfort of the conservatory, or for a
quick glance on getting up in the morning how much (if any) rain has
fallen overnight. But _not_ recommended for climatological purposes!


Stephen

"Stephen Burt" wrote in message
ups.com...
I posted this back last May. Since then, it seems to under-read fairly
consistently by 10-20%; February 88.3 mm by standard gauge, 80 mm by
wireless 1 mm:

--

I've had two 0.2 mm TBRs logged to my AWS for several years now, and
they typically under-record between 1 and 3% compared to my adjacent
Met O standard 5 inch gauge. This is probably about the best one can
expect as these are professional class instruments (both belong to
the
Environment Agency) and are regularly calibrated. The slight error
most
probably results from some loss due to differences in wetting of the
funnels, and in evaporation of the part-filled bucket contents.

As a matter of interest, three months back I purchased one of the
wireless 1 mm capacity tipping bucket gauges referenced in the first
post on this thread. I hasten to add I use this only for
distant-reading purposes, not climatology! After careful calibration,
I
found the 1 mm tip was surprisingly accurate for an inexpensive
instrument (within 4%, which was as accurate as I could measure the
volume of water poured in while I counted the tips). Daily totals
show
good agreement with the checkgauge when more than 2-3 mm falls, but
where it loses out are small falls ( 0.5 mm or so), especially a day
or two apart, where they simply evaporate and are lost to the record.


Monthly totals from both gauges compared with my standard gauge have
been (making slight adjustments to bring them all to 09-09h UTC
terminal hours):


March - checkgauge 50.9 mm (=100%), TBR 1 49.7 mm (97.6%), wireless
gauge
40 mm (79%)
April - checkgauge 34.3 mm (=100%), TBR 1 34.3 mm (100%), wireless
gauge
30 mm (87%)


I would recommend one of these little instruments, even if you have
an
AWS. They are great for watching thunderstorm rainfall tick up whilst
enjoying the lightning in the comfort of the conservatory, or for a
quick glance on getting up in the morning how much (if any) rain has
fallen overnight. But _not_ recommended for climatological purposes!


Stephen



I puchased a wireless raingauge from Conrad Electronics some time ago. For
the money it is pretty good.
It had one major problem, in that it under read by quite some amount. I
found the reason was the magnet on the buckets
was too close to the reed switches, which meant that it only picked up one
tip for every two made by the buckets.
I fixed this by moving the pcb with the reed switches back slightly until it
registered correctly.
It measures 0.45mm per tip, a strange amount especially as it only displays
to 0.1mm. Once fixed and comparing it to
a check gauge, it under read by 15%, but over a few months it has been
getting more accurate. This is probably due to dirt in the buckets making it
tip more frequently. The other night, when we had 10mm in an hour, it under
read by 20%, but generally it is now about 5% low.
For £22, it is a great bit of kit.
It also includes a temp sensor in the gauge which is pretty useless as it
heats up rather quickly in the sun.

John

In uk.sci.weather on Sat, 3 Mar 2007, Hugh Jampton
wrote :

I got one of these merely so I could check intermediate rainfall totals
without having to go out & get wet.

I've noticed that it seems to under-read, especially for low rainfall
totals, and I had to change the clock, otherwise the daily totals reset
at midnight.

I've had one of those for a couple of months. I also get the feeling that
it under-reads but have had nothing to compare it with.

Fortunately I have a standard copper rain gauge for comparison.

It also does funny
things - it added last night's rain total (early hours of today) to it's
weekly total but it's day's total (today) remains at zero.

Yes, it has a tendency to such oddities.

Also, since it only tips in 1mm increments, it obviously won't record
anything less than that.

Never mind - I got a Davis Vantage Pro 2 a couple of days ago :-) I'll
leave the Maplins rain gauge running and compare the 2 rain readings when
we next get rain. Will post the results.

March will be the first full month for comparison, so I'll see how it
goes.
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)

In uk.sci.weather on Sat, 3 Mar 2007, Stephen Burt
wrote :

Monthly totals from both gauges compared with my standard gauge have
been (making slight adjustments to bring them all to 09-09h UTC
terminal hours):


March - checkgauge 50.9 mm (=100%), TBR 1 49.7 mm (97.6%), wireless
gauge
40 mm (79%)
April - checkgauge 34.3 mm (=100%), TBR 1 34.3 mm (100%), wireless
gauge
30 mm (87%)

I would recommend one of these little instruments, even if you have
an
AWS. They are great for watching thunderstorm rainfall tick up whilst
enjoying the lightning in the comfort of the conservatory

That's why I bought it.

, or for a
quick glance on getting up in the morning how much (if any) rain has
fallen overnight. But _not_ recommended for climatological purposes!

I agree!
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)

Never mind - I got a Davis Vantage Pro 2 a couple of days ago :-)
I'll leave the Maplins rain gauge running and compare the 2 rain
readings when we next get rain. Will post the results.

March will be the first full month for comparison, so I'll see how it
goes.

I have a Vantage Pro1 and I think it under recordsa rainfall in general but
without an accurate reference instrument I mave no avaidence to back up my
view which is based on the contour maps published on the Met Office website
and comments by others made here who have simailar equipment. I will
ceratinly be interested to see your findings.

These Vantage pro gauges can be adjustedby altering the height of the screws
under the buckets but it is necessary to know how much the error is before
atempting to do this.

Alan

Sounds like a good buy,except I can't find it on the Maplin product page ,
could somebody point me to it please ?

RonB
"Paul Hyett" wrote in message
...
In uk.sci.weather on Sat, 3 Mar 2007, Stephen Burt
wrote :

Monthly totals from both gauges compared with my standard gauge have
been (making slight adjustments to bring them all to 09-09h UTC
terminal hours):


March - checkgauge 50.9 mm (=100%), TBR 1 49.7 mm (97.6%), wireless
gauge
40 mm (79%)
April - checkgauge 34.3 mm (=100%), TBR 1 34.3 mm (100%), wireless
gauge
30 mm (87%)

I would recommend one of these little instruments, even if you have
an
AWS. They are great for watching thunderstorm rainfall tick up whilst
enjoying the lightning in the comfort of the conservatory

That's why I bought it.

, or for a
quick glance on getting up in the morning how much (if any) rain has
fallen overnight. But _not_ recommended for climatological purposes!

I agree!
--
Paul Hyett, Cheltenham (change 'invalid83261' to 'blueyonder' to email me)

On 4 Mar, 10:52, "Ron Button" wrote:
Sounds like a good buy,except I can't find it on the Maplin product page ,
could somebody point me to it please ?

Can't find the one that used to be on Maplins, but there's one on
Conrad Electronics looks to be a slightly later version of the one I
bought from there a year ago:

http://www1.uk.conrad.com/

Search 'rain gauge'. £20.99. Recommended.

I have a Vantage Pro1 and I think it under recordsa rainfall in general but
without an accurate reference instrument I mave no avaidence to back up my
view which is based on the contour maps published on the Met Office website
and comments by others made here who have simailar equipment. I will
ceratinly be interested to see your findings.

These Vantage pro gauges can be adjustedby altering the height of the screws
under the buckets but it is necessary to know how much the error is before
atempting to do this.

Alan


Yes Alan the VP1 rain gauge does under read but once I'd adjusted the
screws to their full height and added a couple of thin rubber feet the
reading's were much closer to my R&D Instromet gauges.
--
Graham