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Tipping Rain Bucket aka Precip. Sensor

customer support overview

Overview

Baseline’s new tipping rain bucket technology allows the system to react to rain events in real-time plus track historical rain accumulation at a site. The BaseStation 3200 will be able to start, stop, or pause irrigation based on rainfall thresholds the user can set. With Baseline’s Analytics platform they can generate reports with detailed information about total rain accumulation, rainfall rate, and rainfall duration at their site.

Possible Fail Modes

1. Device No Response:This could occur for multiple reasons similar to any other decoder type – it’s not specific to a tipping rain bucket decoder. In this scenario a BaseStation 3200 will attempt to communicate with the rain bucket decoder but fails. The 3200 will issue a “Device_Two-Wire_No Response” message to the user just like it does for all other 2-wire devices.
   1. Probable causes of a No Response include:
      • An issue with the 2-wire path
        • How to determine: The user confirms the decoder appears to be wired correctly to the wire path and does not appear damaged. The controller is on and attempting to communicate to the decoder. The decoder LEDs are not active but other decoders on the wire path are active. The user can take a milliamp reading at the decoder to verify that power is not reaching the decoder.
          1. A 2-wire short message might also be triggered in this scenario which would help point the user in the right direction to resolve.
        • Possible fix: The user will need to locate the break or short in the wire path following standard 2-wire trouble-shooting techniques. 
          1. Link to the KB article for how to find a 2-wire short.
      • Decoder Failure Scenario 1
        • How to determine: The user confirms the decoder appears to be wired correctly. The user confirms that power is reaching the decoder either by using the milliamp clamp meter or by visually confirming with the decoder LED (the LED will blink every 15 seconds if its receiving at least 14 volts). The user can initiate a manual test of the decoder (on the rain bucket side) by tapping the decoder wires together (like a flow sensor tap test). If the LEDs do not respond to the tap test by flickering on then the decoder itself has failed.
        • Possible fix: Replace the decoder
      • Decoder Failure Scenario 2
        • How to determine: The user provides a visual inspection of the decoder and can visibly see that the decoder has been damaged. This occurs when lightning or other significant surge events happen on the wire path.
        • Possible fix: Replace the decoder
2. The decoder works but not getting data:This could happen when a user knows it rained on their site but when they check the controller or BaseManager/AppManager, there is no data collected.
   1. Probably causes of missing data:
      • Rain Bucket sensor blocked
        • How to determine: The user provides a visual inspection of the tipping rain bucket directly. The user confirms that debris has fallen into the rain bucket compromising the ability of the sensor to “tip.”
        • Possible fix: Instruct the user to remove the debris.
      • Rain Bucket not wired to decoder
        • How to determine: The user provides a visual inspection of the wired connection between the rain bucket decoder and the tipping rain bucket itself. The user confirms the wired connection has come apart.
        • Possible fix: Instruct the user to reestablish the wired connection.

New Alert Types

1. Controller Alerts

1. Program Alerts:

1. Device Alerts: