A Fun New Gadget

A Fun New Gadget…

I am a gadget addict.  People always ask me where I find all of these things.  I have never found it hard, I am just always looking around for the fun and interesting things I can bring into to my life to provide me information and fun.  Last week, I found another gadget that I am thoroughly enjoying.

Last Thursday we had rain.  It poured in the late afternoon.  I was safe and sound inside my house, but I could hear the rain pounding on the roof and windows.  I had a lion’s Club meeting that evening so I headed to the local Baptist Church.  Stepping outside on my deck I was struck by the sound of rushing water.  There is a runoff from the field across the street that runs under the road and then divides my property from the house to the north.  The roaring told me that there had been a lot of water and it was cascading down the hill.

As I drove, there was debris on the road all along the way.  The streams were full and rushing much like my runoff.  There were areas where you could see gravel and sand-like material in the road where torrents of water had moved the debris from the gravel driveways.  Lots of signs of lots of water.  Upon arrival at the Lion’s Club I was informed that we had received 3 ½ inches of rain in just a couple of hours.  No wonder there was water rushing.

As you know, I had a computer die and had replaced it with an inexpensive Gateway from WalMart.  While there I had gone to the electric hardware side of the store.  I was looking for a specific power strip to set up the new computer.  This strip has a master outlet and four additional outlets that rely on the master outlet. So my computer is plugged into the master and my monitor and printer are plugged into the additional plugs.  When I shut the computer down, the printer and monitor turn off as well.

In the same aisle was a selection of weather monitoring gadgets.  Most of them were temperature gauges and humidity gauges.  There were the normal rain gauges that collect rain, after it stops you go and read the measurement, dump out the water and wait for the next rain.  What I found among all of these devices was an electronic rain gauge.

 

Jane's New Gadget

It is an Acu-Rite Rain Gauge, model #00875W.  It was $20.00.  So I decided for that amount of money I would give it a try.  I brought it home and set about getting it setup.  There are two components to the device, one if the collector/transmitter and the other is the receiver/display unit.  The collector has a simple system.  There is a scale-like device inside that has two small cups.  It is balanced on a rod system so that as water fills one of the cups it forces the cup to drop down, dumping the water out of the bottom and places the second cup in place to fill up and then drop down to dump bringing the other cup up.  So as the rain falls these cups fill and dump and fill and dump.  Each time a cup dumps it transmits that information to the receiver and displays the calibrated amount on the screen.  Yesterday there was over an inch of rain by the end of the day and overnight last night there was an additional ¾ of an inch of rain.  There is more in the offing today.  The unit has several modes so you can measure an ‘event’, the ‘day’ the ‘week’, and a couple of totals areas so I guess you could do month and perhaps year… your option.  Each one can be individually reset to start new at the desired time and the event and day rest automatically based on the clock setting.  I have not had it a week yet, so that one might rest automatically, too.

So, another fun gadget in my life…. Yippee!