Summary

These are the plastic parts needed to build a automatic pluviometer. When used with a Yocto-Knob this thing will allow to find out if the weather is as bad you think it is.

Instructions

These are plastic parts needed to build an USB pluviometer. They are meant to be used with a Yocto-Knob ( yoctopuce.com/EN/products/usb-sensors/yocto-knob ), but any electronics with GPIO, such as Raspberry PI or Arduino, would probably do as well. You will find here instructions for assembly. Details about electronics and programming can be found on our blog: yoctopuce.com/EN/article/how-to-build-an-usb-pluviometer

Except for one part, this thing is assembled using screws and brass threaded inserts. This allows to assemble and disassemble it quickly and easily. Moreover, the final assembly is rock solid.

Additional Hardware
You will need some non-printable hardware to build this thing.

One 3mm LED as powerful as possible, e.g. L-7104SEC-J3 from Kingbright
One 3mm photo-transistors, e.g. : SFH 310-2/3 from OSRAM
One 200 Ohms resistor
Fine electric wire
A Yocto-Knob or equivalent
A 40mm stainless pin, as fine and smooth as possible
M3 threaded inserts, such as BN 1036 - DIN 16903 B from bossard.com
M3x12 screws
M3x10 headless screws
Some glue suited for the matter used by your 3D printer (*)

(*) If you are using ABS, you may want to try Methyl-Ethyl-Ketone (MEK). Actually it's not glue but a powerful ABS solvent allowing to literally weld parts.

Tools

Glue gun
Solder iron

Mounting steps
STEP 1
Place the threaded inserts with a solder iron in the base and the body

STEP 2
Glue the two posts on the base

STEP 3
Place the bucket, the stainless pin will act as an axle. Place the headless screws, those are meant to tune the bucket course.

STEP 4
Wire the led, the resistor and the photo-transistor. Make sure it works properly then use a glue gun for insulation, it's gonna be quitte moist in there :-)

STEP 5
Place the body

STEP 6
Place the top

STEP 7
Place funnel and the top grid. Actually those two parts are printed for the sake of having a fully 3D printed device, but a funnel from the neastest harware store would do much better as it would be smoother and non porous.

Assembly is complete, now you need to write the program needed to count the bucket tilts. For more info on the programming and electronics, see yoctopuce.com/EN/article/how-to-build-an-usb-pluviometer

One more thing: these parts were printed with a Dimension Elite printer. This printer features a twin head with soluble support, so we didn't have to care about hangovers. If your printer does not feature soluble support you may have difficulties to print the bucket and the funnel.

Pluviometer