Cumulus Support

For the 2nd time in the past few months during some very wet weather (>140mm in 3 days) my VP2 ISS has stopped transmitting. The reason is ants, looking for somewhere dry, they mass under the circuit board cover, and I guess their thousands of little muddy feet short out the electronics It has stopped raining so I've cleaned them out this morning and all seems to be well with the weather transmissions again

Is this a problem anyone else has encountered? It's a continuing battle with them in my power shed (off-grid power- charge controller, inverter etc) too, they love nesting in there, once causing over $1000 worth of damage to an inverter when they caused it to blow up by building a nest inside it. They seem to love warm electronics.

I've seen lots of posts where ants seem to be attracted to electromagnetic fields around power cables for some reason. Is there no way of sealing the ISS unit? How about some of those 'ant bands' that are designed for wrapping around plant/sapling trunks around your pole?

They came in the drain hole at the bottom, it's there to keep things dry(ish) in case of a leak further up- having the enclosure fill with water would definitely destroy the electronics. My wife, who is a horticulturalist, tells me a ring of petroleum jelly around plant stems is good for stopping ants, so maybe I'll try that, although I'm pretty sure it will melt and disappear in hot weather.

Gordon-Loomberah wrote:For the 2nd time in the past few months during some very wet weather (>140mm in 3 days) my VP2 ISS has stopped transmitting. The reason is ants, looking for somewhere dry, they mass under the circuit board cover, and I guess their thousands of little muddy feet short out the electronics It has stopped raining so I've cleaned them out this morning and all seems to be well with the weather transmissions again

Is this a problem anyone else has encountered? It's a continuing battle with them in my power shed (off-grid power- charge controller, inverter etc) too, they love nesting in there, once causing over $1000 worth of damage to an inverter when they caused it to blow up by building a nest inside it. They seem to love warm electronics.

Hi gordon,
I have had this problem as well with ants here on the Gold Coast where they have been invading circuit boards in our A/C compressors here at our resort. Our pest control man put us on to a product in an aerosol can the name is "ASTRO aerosol" it is produced by a compnay in Brisbane their phone number is 1800 066 355 unit 26/8 Metroplex Ave Murarrie which is near Brisbane airport.
since I have been using this product the blighters have vanished, best of luck if this fails you may need an Ant Whisperer.

regards

Brian

Thanks Brian, but since we run an organic farm here, that cant be used, especially as it is toxic to frogs, and there are quite a lot of them not far from my ISS. I think I'll try the petroleum jelly barrier and see how that goes.
In the power shed I dealt with them with several applications of heat from a propane gas torch over the past few days, heat kills them very fast and leaves no toxic residue. I'm sure they will be back the next time we get a very wet spell, so I'll just have to keep an eye on their activities.