Hi
As we do not have that much frost in the UK, compared to other places anyway lol
I do not want to have to cover up my bucket due to obvious reasons.
I have found this here what do you think?
There is also this i am wondering if i can either bend it or modify it?
Whats ya thoughts and how have you peeps got around this, specifically for the standard OR WMR928NX station?
What is your desired result? Keep the frost off, or melt snow and measure as rain? The OS has a pretty small gauge as I recall so your possibilities may be limited. Putting about 24 watts of 12 volt bulbs inside the gauge works well with the Davis, and 12 or 24 volts is way safer than running mains electric out there. If you can tinker a bit I would try a string of smaller bulbs in there, and use something like a low voltage garden light transformer to power them (I guess you have those things in the UK?). Thermostat is good too.
Hi Niko
Yeah with have the low wattage out here 
Acutally i hadnt thought about melting the snow as we dont really get much, but it might be an option
I take it this would need to be a bit more powerfull than it would be to keep the frost off?
I think it more depends how fast it falls. That gauge doesn’t have much holding capacity so if the snow’s falling fast it would probably mound like an ice cream cone and then you would lose the rest because the heater would be overwhelmed.
Well, to give you an idea, the total snow fall 2006/2007 in my area was no more than about 3" over about 2 days lol
To be honest, i don’t think i will be worrying about snow melt, it will be more for keeping frost to a minimum
Just something to think about…if you have frost and your heater melts it and your bucket tips, how are you going to account for that tip in WD? It isn’t rain and it isn’t snow…
Good question, I guess I don’t see much point in worrying about frost :?
Well, yeah i suppose lol…
I was just worrying about the tipper freezing up and not performing if it rains.
Since your reply i had a thought… If its raining it shouldn’t be cold enough to freeze
well not here in the UK…
Going back to your reply though…
Just something to think about...if you have frost and your heater melts it and your bucket tips, how are you going to account for that tip in WD? It isn't rain and it isn't snow...
I was going to make sure the heater was on or thermostatically cuts in at say 1or 2 degrees above
so in theory there shouldn’t be any frost in the bucket to start with.
The yearly snow average for where I live in the UK is 0.7days so dont think I will worry to much about the snow problem…lol
In fact the last time I can remember any real snow in the London area was a good thirty years ago. When my car got stuck.
The snow we get in our area is nothing compared to other countries which get real serious snowfalls, yet we come to a grinding halt when we get just one inch what can I say.
Steve
Hi everybody
I’ve been running the my home-made rain gauge heater through two winters now
when I switch on the rain gauge heater I have whether display set to ignore the first tip of the day
this is good if you have melted Frost and wished not to add to your total
when experimenting with any external power. Please consider all the safety aspects
The rain gauge heater I have built as a thermal cutout switch which is okay does its job
After close inspection of the inside of the rain gauge plastic I was getting a slight discoloration
so I have decided to build a control box with a controlled thermostat which I can set to achieve the optimum results
To build a control box is approximately
Hi Mick,
looks like a nifty bit of work ya done there!
I’m not sure what problem you’re trying to solve. I’ve run an unheated rain gauge in the UK for the last 7 years and I’ve not had any problems. Why spend money engineering a solution to a problem that might not exist? You might also end up damaging your rain gauge trying to add or run a heater giving you a problem that you would never have had if you hadn’t made the change.
Well, from what i have read on the forum, frost, it was to minimize any to the components
also i would like to measure the snow melt as and when…
But, from what you have put, i might not bother lol
I might just make an insulated jacket for it instead…
Cosy 
I am thinking, Should i go for Berghaus, Karrimor or northface? :lol: