Troubleshooting

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Problem: precip bucket not registering tips Testing:

  1. look for animal chews on cable
  2. do a continuity test. Put multimeter leads on pulse channel and ground and when the tipper is in the halfway position there should be a tone from the meter if you're getting good tips from the bucket. If no tips, try moving the precip bucket to a new pulse port. If unable (due to wind speed in there or something) try moving the leads. C7/C8 & 5V are the same as P1/P2 & G.

Problem: AT/RH not working

  1. unplug and replug the head.
  2. wire control wire (orange wire) into 5V. This will leave the sensor in the 'ON' position. Then measure the millivolt output at the SE channel (and AG). I

Problem: All sensors giving haywire readings. One thing this might be is if you have a sensor that goes bad and it takes 12volts to power it could be damaged, which can sometimes cause the 12 volts to bleed through the system. If 12volts gets to the SE channel then you will get over ranging errors and oddities through other sensors. To check, remove one sensor and make a measurement. Then replace nad move to the next sensor. Eventually things will look good if you remove the busted one. This doesn't happen often but it is a real doozy to trouble-shoot.

Problem: Not getting through with radio communication

  1. check cabling (coax)
  2. check that radio is turned on at the control port (with volt meter in addition to looking at flags & control port state)
  3. When radio is on check the lights on it (should be red-off-blinking red (left to right) unless the radio is in active use).
  4. check that the antenna hasn't vibrated loose.

Problem: Not getting good readings from stuff on the multiplexer

  1. sometimes the multiplexer needs a P22 pause statement added to the program instructions. They're supposed to be able to switch super quickly but sometimes they can't keep up with the measurement speed so you end up measuring the wrong channels. A P22 excite with delay with the excitation voltage set to 0mV is the common way to address this.