[Weather] conversion help

[Matthew Smith]

Quoth Steinar Midtskogen at 11/17/06 16:42...
 > Professional equipment often uses a single bucket (without tipping
> buckets) willed with antifreeze (which will melt snow) and some oil
> (to prevent evaporation), and it will determine precipitation by
> weight.  The bucket needs to be emptied and refilled a few times a
> year, though.  Has anyone attempted to make a 1-wire based gauge of
> this design?

I'd guess that the mechanics would be the trickiest part.  Strain gauge,
op amp, 1-Wire ADC would do the electronic side.  However, most of the
cheaper, readily available strain gauges work on compression, so some
system of levers would need to be employed.

I'm guessing that the bucket would hang from a wire.  Even if the bucket
were on a platform, you would need a series of levers and knife-edge
pivots to make the thing compress straight up and down.

Cheers

M

-- 
Matthew Smith
IT Consultancy & Accessible Web Application Development
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