piBeacon: 18 - RG11 rain sensor setup

kw123 · Post by **kw123** » Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:31 am

The RG11 Rain sensor is an optical sensor with no moving parts. It can measure rain amounts from tiny to very heavy rain.http://hydreon.com/wp-content/uploads/s ... ctions.pdf
It has several modes that can be switched dynamically (through switches/ relays).

sensitivity mode are :
- first rain drop
-bucket sizes of 0.0001" , 0.001" 0.01"

the piBeacon plugin can switch modes dynamically = switch sensitivity with rain amount as well as static ie any rain... 0.01" per measurement (bucket)

In order to fully use the capabilities you need to switch the switches on the rain sensor with eg relays.
The attached drawing shows how to attach a RG11 rain sensor to the RPI through a relay board.

: Screen Shot 2018-09-24 at 12.17.47.png (214.32 KiB) Viewed 13671 times

The states of the indigo sensor device look like:

: Screen Shot 2018-09-24 at 12.27.10.png (34.73 KiB) Viewed 13671 times

(units in mm]

you can set the rain units and digits in config.

In device edit you can select various timing settings and modes as well as formatting of the status field

The rain amounts can be reset in pibeacon menus under "Reset or Request new data ... "
at each hour/ midnight/ week/ month/ year the amounts shift to lastHour/lastDay...
at midnight Max and Min rain rates are calculated and shifted to lastDay

RG11 next to a common bucket rain sensor

: Screen Shot 2018-09-24 at 12.34.13.png (269.33 KiB) Viewed 13667 times

Karl

Asconasny · Post by **Asconasny** » Fri Sep 28, 2018 7:50 am

This is just perfect! Bought one of these a couple of years ago.
haven´t looked at it since.

Guess this has to be my winter project

Appreciate your hard work on this plugin. Thank you

kw123 · Post by **kw123** » Fri Sep 28, 2018 8:48 am

Wouter has it installed. And it seems to work.

Nice feature is you get very fast warning (seconds)when rain starts. Combined with regular rain count.

And here in TX we have 15” rain an hour rain rates ( though not lasting 1 hour) and it works.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Asconasny · Post by **Asconasny** » Fri Sep 28, 2018 9:31 am

nice

The fast warning was why i bought it. If i have something, or my wife is doing anything outside that dont like water we have a chance to save it before it gets soaked.
The rain count is a nice option, i didnt have plans for using this, but now when you have made the schematics and all i have to do the whole setup

WouterK · Post by **WouterK** » Fri Sep 28, 2018 12:50 pm

Yes, It is a Nice sensor

Like Karl already said it reacts very fast, is accurate and makes a very good combination with the pibeacon plugin!

kw123 · Post by **kw123** » Thu Jan 16, 2020 9:38 am

in Dallas: this morning the rain sensor choked (*)

at 254mm/h = 10inches/hour rain

Now back down to 2mm/hour

The rain total today is 10cm = 4 inches so far ( in about 4 hours)

Karl

(*) had to reset the sensor = power cycle

Asconasny · Post by **Asconasny** » Sun Jan 26, 2020 11:32 am

Still havent got around fiddeling with this,

but i noticed the 52pi relay addon, would this setup work with a 52pi hat? That would be a nice setup.

kw123 · Post by **kw123** » Sun Jan 26, 2020 12:53 pm

not in the current form, but I can adopt that.
currently it sets the relays through GPIO on/off.

that board uses i2c to set them, not a big deal to add that.

I actually really like that board well done, good software support, good docu. only draw back is only 3Amps current.

For this app you only need mAmps.

so if you decide to try that version I can add it quickly

Karl

Asconasny · Post by **Asconasny** » Sun Jan 26, 2020 2:17 pm

Ive placed a order for a couple of the relays when i saw they got supported i pibeacon, Figured it could be nice to have on a rainy day

If its not to much trouble to add the option it would be perfect to use one of them on the rain sensor instead of the relay board.

kw123 · Post by **kw123** » Sun Jan 26, 2020 4:11 pm

It is done ~ 1 hour, but not tested, if you could try, I hesitate to rip mine apart

52pi relay hard wired setup:
relay 4 = 12V
relay 3 = dip switch 5
relay 2 = dip switch 2
relay 1 = dip switch 1

will publish this week, need to test some other things

Karl

Asconasny · Post by **Asconasny** » Sun Jan 26, 2020 4:33 pm

wow, that was fast,

I haven't received mine yet, ordered from China so i guess it will take a while.
will test when i get them

kw123 · Post by **kw123** » Mon Jan 27, 2020 5:14 pm

did a dry run and the relays click in the right way w artificially created rain (connecting the gpio-IN pin to ground / off frequently)
It goes through sensitivity cycle with relay clicks the proper way: check if rain / high/med/low sensitivity and back

and for your relay you just need to see if anything can still leave China ..

Karl

Indigo Domotics