Finding Bugs in an Aercus WS3083

While we're not drought declared, there's been precious little rain over the last 6 months or so, which made it hard to work out if I really had a problem or not.

The rainfall had been light and infrequent while each time the weather station recorded 0mm rainfall, which didn't seem unreasonable but was dubious nonetheless.

All the sensors appeared to be working OK. I re-seated, reconnected and reset everything to make sure that the system was connected and working fine but with no change in the result.

I eventually was driven to digging out the manual gauge which recorded 18mm the next time it rained while the weather station recorded 0mm.

No choice this time but to get up the ladder and disassemble the rain gauge.

I removed the cover and everything passed an initial eye balling.

The Aercus WS3083 uses a lever arm to measure and discard collected rain. Being a simple primate, I attempted toggled it with my index finger, instantly noted it wasn't moving freely before a massive grasshopper|cricket flew out from under the arm and into my face. It had made a nice home under the arm, preventing it from dipping down and counting rain.

Unsurprisingly it moved freely after that and has been accurately measuring rain since.

Postscript: I think the chickens are still upset at me for failing to catch the grasshopper|cricket and feed it to them.