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Frequently Asked Questions

Please note that many questions are also answered in our user manual.

I'm a farmer and want to know how much rain has fallen in specific period of time. Will the Rain Gage easily do this for me?

Unfortunately, the Rain gage does not come with a readout, so it will not easily give the amount of rain fall over a time. The Rain Gage has an output that "pulses" when a certain rain event -- set by the specific modes -- has occurred. It is up to the purchaser to interpret the data as they see fit.

We have received many calls and inquiries from farmers wanting a simple, maintenance free rain gauge that gives an easy to interpret readout. We have concluded that this is not the product the farmers are looking for. The Rain Gage, in it's current form, is mainly for system designers to design into other products. Plus, the RG-10 is not wireless, which seems to be what the farmers really want.

What is the accuracy of the Rain gage?

The Rain Tracker Rain Gage is not as accurate as a properly maintained Tipping Bucket in ideal conditions. 
We do not claim an accuracy specification for the Rain Gage.  The Rain Gage is very repeatable, and over a variety of conditions will yield an average result that is reasonably  close to that of a tipping bucket.  But, for any given rainstorm the result can be off by as much as 2:1 in either direction. 

The strength of the Rain Gage is that it works in many situations where a tipping bucket simply does not.   That is, the Rain Gage is vastly more accurate than a tipping bucket that has ceased to work properly due to dirt or mineral deposit or mechanical difficulty, or a tipping bucket in a mobile application that is constantly giving false indications due to motion.  The Rain Gage is more accurate for a small (but in some applications, meaningful) amount of rain, such as 0.01", that will simply not register in a tipping bucket.

This said, if you do not need the ruggedness of the Rain Tracker Rain Gage, and maintaining the tipping bucket is not a problem, use a tipping bucket. 

Does the Rain Gage work in direct sunlight?

Yes. The Rain Gage rejects the effects of sunlight using optics, filtering circuitry and software. Normal fixed installations will be completely unaffected by sunlight.

The Rain Gage can be, however, affected by extremely bright, very rapidly changing sharp shadows. Such shadows are generated, for example, by placing the Rain Gage on a moving vehicle and driving it under overhanging trees at, say 30 MPH. The effect is to decrease the sensitivity. The RG-10 compensates for this decrease in sensitivity in software, and the output of the Rain Gage is largely unaffected.

How do you set the Rain Gage for the different modes?

A DIP switch configures the Rain Gage to the different possible modes. Within each mode there are as many as 16 possible further adjustments.

The O-ring doesn't fit properly, it's seems to be to small.

Try stretching it a few times before putting it into the groove. This will help to expand the o-ring for a bit while you assemble the Rain Gage. After the Rain Gage has been in operation and assembled for some time, the o-ring tends to stay in place when the Rain Gage is disassembled. But if it falls out again, just stretch the o-ring before assembly.

What kind of output does it have?

There is a main OUT terminal as well as an auxiliary output. The function of each of these is set by the mode.

The outputs are open-collector style. An open collector output acts as a switch to ground. You can use this to drive a relay to control equipment directly, or use a pull-up resistor to interface to external equipment.

Does the Rain Gage sense Condensation in Tipping Bucket and other modes?

Generally, the Rain Gage will sense condensation as if it were rainfall. Enabling the heater (DIP Switch 8) will usually prevent condensation. Condensation, however, seldom amounts to a significant accumulation of water.

My application is solar powered. Can I use the Rain Gage?

Yes. The normal current drain of the Rain Gage is a reasonable 5 mA with no outputs on and no heater enabled. But, the RG-10 also includes modes that enable micro-power sleep mode when no rain is detected. This drops the current consumption down to 1.5 mA for long periods of time on dry days.

Does the Rain Gage still work when it is covered with water?

Yes. The Rain Gage is looking for changes in the surface. This can be a drop landing on one of the target regions, or rolling off one of the target regions. When the Rain Gage surface is covered with water, additional water will continue to change the properties of the surface. Some raindrops will cause an increase in transmittance of the beams. Other raindrops will knock-off an existing water droplet, and cause a decrease.   The software properly detects all such changes.

Does the Rain Gage measure the size of the impinging rain drops?

Yes. Large drops that are a direct hit on one of the four target regions are weighted more heavily in the algorithms than are small. Direct hits count more than drops on the edge of the regions. Other drops land on the top of the Rain Gage before coalescing and running over a target region. All of these events are statistically averaged to form a reasonably accurate result.

How accurate is the Rain Gage?

We do not have a published accuracy specification at this time. Typically, the Rain Gage will read higher than a tipping bucket, between zero and fifty percent. For small amounts of rain, the quantization effects of the bucket, as well as the need to cover a collecting funnel, will cause the bucket to read low.