Heater

[Gaetan Cormier]

Hi gang!

Hi have an OSI WR-918 (Complete Cabled Weather Station) I would like to know if you know a company that makes a heater for the rain gauge? If not, did any of you find plans to make one?

 

[John Diel]

Davis makes a heater for their guages, but I couldn't tell you the specs or if it would fit or not.

I assume this is a non-mobile set up. If this is the case, I suspect you could probably use a standard heating pad and place it inside the guage. I know there are some "pipe wraps" that would probably work as well.

I finally gave up on the mobile rain guage thing. I just couldn't get a stable enough platform for it to be of any real use. I could register 3 inches of rain in the 2 miles I drive to work on a hot sunny day

 

[Robert Dewey]

Originally posted by Gaetan Cormier
Hi gang!

Hi have an OSI WR-918 (Complete Cabled Weather Station) I would like to know if you know a company that makes a heater for the rain gauge? If not, did any of you find plans to make one?

I have a piece of work weather station from LaCross (Weather Channel edition)... I am planning on making a heater for the rain gauge, as it would be rather usefull in the winter... I am going to use a heating pad which is designed to melt snow along gutters (to prevent ice dams)... It's similar to this:

http://www.easyheat.com/Content1/Products/...s/sm_detail.htm

I'm not sure how I am going to build it yet, since this is something I thought of a few weeks ago when it was snowing...

 

[John Diel]

Check out your local Home Improvement store for "Heating Tape". This is generally a plastic coated wire that's wrapped around a pipe, gutter, etc. to keep it from freezing. I would bet that it would work great on the rain guage.

 

[Gaetan Cormier]

Mmmm I like the idea of that heated tape... I'll check that out

 

[Tom Van Kuiken]

You can go to a pet store and buy a heater pad for reptiles. The come in different sizes and will fit inside or around the bucket.

 

[Pat Palmer]

Here's a tip from a plumber... Don't put that heat tape anywhere it could be even partially immersed or open to precipitation. It WILL short out. In the plumbing trade, we NEVER use that stuff. At the very least, it'll pop the circuit breaker, at the worst, you'll have an electrical fire in a hard to reach place.

If you must use it, shrink wrap it, grade it towards the power cord, and put in a drip loop.

 

[John Diel]

Hey Pat,

That's good to know stuff. I've never used it, just looked at it. I don't know about the OSI rain guage, but the Davis is pretty well open to let the water out after hitting the self tipping bucket. That would not be a good thing to have go wrong. :?