Good to know. The RPi where the bucket is connected to is actually not the 
machine I run weewx on. I run MQTT to feed the (collective) rain amount 
into weewx every time the bucket tips. My "main" weather station, if you 
want to call it that, is a Ecowitt GW1100 with an outside temperature 
sensor. At least that's what's configured as the weather station in weewx.
But yes, I wrote a simple systemd service script that restarts the python 
script if necessary.

On Tuesday, December 27, 2022 at 2:46:21 PM UTC-6 Seth Ratner wrote:

> I've been happy with mine. Ecowitt sells a bird spike kit that fits it 
> very well. 
>
> The only downside is making the bucket play nice with whatever driver 
> you're using for the main weather station. I created a service to 
> accomplish this, which is linked in this thread. Come to think of it, I'll 
> probably try to get Tom to take a quick look at the service, make sure I'm 
> following the weewx best practices. He was incredibly helpful in getting my 
> chill hours xtype to work.
>
> Make sure if you're using a service to count the bucket tips that you have 
> a function to disconnect the pin from gpiozero. If something goes wrong and 
> the weewx engine restarts, if your service hasn't released the pin when it 
> exited then it will throw an error trying to reassign the pin. Took me a 
> while to figure that one out..
>
> On Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 11:42 DrTron <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Thanks a lot, Seth!
>> I do it similarly in python: from gpiozero import Button
>> That button routine in the gpiozero library already has a debounce 
>> function and I only count on "close" and just ignore the "open". So far it 
>> works well, but my current gauge only has a 5 * 11 cm opening (=55cm2), 
>> whereas the Rainwise probably has 5-6 times that.
>> Mine tips every 0.387mm of rain (calibrated to my best abilities), so I 
>> guess I would benefit from the Rainwise gauge.
>>
>> On Tuesday, December 27, 2022 at 9:49:38 AM UTC-6 Seth Ratner wrote:
>>
>>> The Rain wise bucket is .01" / .254mm, and in testing it that has been 
>>> accurate. It's more a matter of leveling the buckets once mounted, but it's 
>>> not a difficult procedure. 
>>>
>>> And yes, it just acts as a button/switch. I used the gpio library 
>>> because it easily allows for treating the bucket like a button and 
>>> assigning a function to it. You just want to make sure you only trigger the 
>>> function when the reed switch closes, not on state change (which would give 
>>> double the triggers per bucket tip, open and close). You can also change 
>>> the settings to avoid bouncing. 
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Dec 27, 2022, 09:22 DrTron <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Seth,
>>>> Reviving this thread since I currently run a very similar setup. 
>>>> However, I have a rather el-cheapo rain gauge and was looking into 
>>>> replacing it with something more accurate, like the Rainwise RAINEW 111.
>>>>
>>>> Supposing you did calibrate the gauge, what bucket size did you arrive 
>>>> at? Like, how many mm of rain per bucket tip?
>>>>
>>>> I already suspected that the wire from the gauge just contains the 
>>>> button-like signal from the reed switch, as does my current gauge, so I 
>>>> can 
>>>> directly swap it out.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>> On Monday, October 25, 2021 at 11:00:50 AM UTC-5 vince wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Helps a lot, thanks.   I kinda figured you had other power that you're 
>>>>> just piggybacking the pi onto.   Cool project.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sunday, October 24, 2021 at 6:55:18 PM UTC-7 Seth Ratner wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> One wire to the chosen GPIO pin (set in weewx.conf) and one to GND. 
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Nope. I might keep it for a future project, but not used here
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yeah I'm guessing it's just because the wire is not direct burial 
>>>>>> rated. I'll be routing mine through PVC
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I keep it in a shed in the orchard. All components are mounted to a 
>>>>>> piece of plywood. For power I have a 20w solar panel with a Renogy 
>>>>>> Wanderer 
>>>>>> solar charge controller and a 6Ah battery. I may increase the battery 
>>>>>> size, 
>>>>>> as the system also powers an OpenSprinkler controller and 16 zone 
>>>>>> extender. 
>>>>>> The Pi serves as a WeeWx host, MQTT bridge with my HomeAssistant server 
>>>>>> and 
>>>>>> reverse proxy to serve the Open Sprinkler. I'll add an Ecowitt HS80 and 
>>>>>> GW1100 soon to complete the station. 
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I may once I finish things up, but there's not much to see with the 
>>>>>> GPIO Rain Gauge since literally the only setup is connecting the two 
>>>>>> wires 
>>>>>> to the two RPi pins. 
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Friday, October 22, 2021 at 12:32:02 PM UTC-5 vince wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Pretty cool.  Dumb questions follow.....
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>    - how'd you wire it up ?
>>>>>>>    - did you not use the little display that comes with the gauge ?
>>>>>>>    - their manual says 'wire cannot be buried' - any idea why ?   
>>>>>>>    What if it was in a PVC conduit ?
>>>>>>>    - what does your zeroW setup look like for powering it, keeping 
>>>>>>>    it dry, etc. ????
>>>>>>>    - add photos and a nice writeup to your github page perhaps ?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Reason I'm asking is that this seems like a pretty nice way for 
>>>>>>> folks to add a rain gauge to stations like WeatherFlow that have 
>>>>>>> notoriously inaccurate readings, assuming they are already running the 
>>>>>>> nice 
>>>>>>> WF UDP driver for that gear...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Friday, October 22, 2021 at 7:22:05 AM UTC-7 Seth Ratner wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Got it working!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This allows you to add a wired rain gauge to WeeWx via the GPIO 
>>>>>>>> pins on a Raspberry Pi. Thanks for the help!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://github.com/lordratner/weewx_gpio_raingauge
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Friday, October 22, 2021 at 8:17:23 AM UTC-5 Seth Ratner wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Fantastic, Thank you! That's exactly what I needed. 
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Thursday, October 21, 2021 at 2:39:32 PM UTC-5 
>>>>>>>>> [email protected] wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Seth Ratner schrieb am Donnerstag, 21. Oktober 2021 um 21:27:14 
>>>>>>>>>> UTC+2:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> How are variables in weewx.conf referenced?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> By the variable config_dict you find in __init__. It is a 
>>>>>>>>>> dictionary the represents weewx.conf. For Example the section 
>>>>>>>>>> [Station] you 
>>>>>>>>>> find as config_dict['Station']. The entry "location" in the 
>>>>>>>>>> [Station] 
>>>>>>>>>> section you find as config_dict['Station']['location'].
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> If you need your own entries, define a section and put your 
>>>>>>>>>> values there. Then you can access them via config_dict.
>>>>>>>>>>  
>>>>>>>>>>
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