fousb strange behaviour

[Macha]

... well at least I think it is.

I’ve had a "cheapo" wh1080 system running for a few years with an RPi and weewx.

I’ve quite a few glitches over the years - lockups and communication dropouts sorted with fresh batteries and/or restarts. Silly readings have been tamed with +/- limits.

The latest behaviour is stumping me. Over the past few weeks I’ve been getting rain readings when no rain has fallen. Furthermore, these rain readings are "sensible" in the sense of being within normal rainfall levels around here. For example last week it recorded around 100mm per day for 3 days, which is what continuous heavy rain would produce.

Except it hasn’t actually rained for several weeks.

I’ve tried the following ...

disconnecting the rain sensor (tipping bucket) - it still records rain.

moving the remote unit closer (now within 5m of the console) - no difference.

changing USB cable (no change).

using a powered USB device (no change).

Any clues (please)

[Andrew Milner]

Have you opened up the raingauge and cleaned inside - as well as possibly removed any spiders and other wildlife that may be tipping the gauge for you .......

[Greg from Oz]

Yep...spiders love the tipper as playground equipment.

They also can spin their web on the tipper and stop it from working.

I clean mine out regularly.

Was it windy when you had the rain results. I moved the rain gauge down to the bottom of the pole I had it on as it was swaying in the wind and making the tipper move.

[Macha]

Thanks for responding.

Yes, I get spiders (and birds perching on it and ...).

However, these rain results occur even when the rain meter isn’t connected. For example, overnight recorded 30mm of rain when the meter was disconnected - furthermore, it wasn’t even raining.

I was wondering about some kind interference. Or the station just being, well, buggered.

I’m almost at the point of splashing out on a new station, but wouldn’t want the new one to act just like the current one.