[Weather] [personal] Rain Guage problems

[Matthew Smith]

Quoth Karl Uppiano at 03/27/07 12:14...
> It sounds as though the switch is only turning off from one side, and not 
> the other. You might have to play with the orientation some more. I got the 
> desired behavior with the switch broadside to one pole, although the switch 
> sense is opposite of what one might expect: on/off/on. That could drain the 
> backup battery if the gauge were un-powered for several months. That is not 
> a concern the way I use it.
I never got around to putting a backup battery on the board (it's one I
made myself from the Dallas schematic) - my power-fail backup is an old
cylinder gauge and manual SQL inserts ;-)

I can't do much with the magnet, as it is part of the Lacrosse gauge
that I vandalised (threw away the electronics it came with), and have
had trouble re-positioning the board to get the reed switch in the right
place.

In hindsight - had I not gone for Hall-effect - I would have put the
reed switch on a separate board to give me more flexibility in positioning.

> Hall-effect switches are nice, but they require a power supply. I'm not sure 
> if the parasitic 1-Wire supply would cut it, although you could provide 
> auxiliary power.

I will probably stop using parasitic power on my external equipment.  I
have a Power-over-Ethernet adapter that I bought for my DSL router, only
to find that it couldn't provide enough current.  I will probably use
this to provide a decent (2A) 5V supply at the equipment.

Cheers

M

-- 
Matthew Smith
IT Consultancy & Web Application Development
Business: http://www.kbc.net.au/
Personal: http://www.smiffysplace.com/
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/smiffy