Cumulus Support

Yesterday, we had some rain and wind. Today, the temp. dropped to below 0 celsius and at some point this afternoon, the anemometer stopped rotating even tho' there was adequate wind. I forced it to rotate and heard a clicking as tho' something inside was preventing free rotation. I'm thinking there is a bit of ice inside preventing free rotation of the housing.
As an experiment, I'm thinking of taking a hair dryer to the unit to melt and evaporate the moisture inside.
Any thoughts?

Just let it be and do not force the cups. Let nature take its course and as soon as the temp rises above 0 c it will work again fine.

Hey iceberg, thsnk for the advice. It sound like you know what you are talking about (your being from Montreal). I'll leave the beast alone and not it.

Regards,

daqddyo1 (a.k.a. john)

iceberg,

As soon as the temp. creeped above 0C, the vanes started turning again, so all is right in the world (until the next freeze? We'll soon find out.)

Regards,
John

JOHN,

Hello, last year a few times my anemometer froze but as soon as the temp crept up above 0C all was well and im happy all is well with your anemometer.
If you need any info on anything this is the perfect forum to do it thanks to Steve.

http://pages.videotron.com/slmeteo/index.htm

I replaced my station due to a broken anemometer, only to find that the new anemometer stuck, so I again went back to the shop, replaced it....3 days later it stuck again.

I had a spare, so i shoved that on and decided to take the old one apart to find out what could be wrong.

Underneath the cup mounting I found the racer bearing, and also the fact that to stop it "sliding off upwards (helicopter fashion)" they have just melted the top of the spindle. So after removing the bearing and oiling it a little, i also smoothed out a little of the melted plastic, and hey ho, one working anemometer (now spare)!

The anemometer design is susceptible to lockup due to ice or freezing rain bridging the gap between the rotor and the mounting housing. Sometimes, even a heavy frost will do it. Mine gets stuck a few times each year. If the temperature goes above freezing for a bit it comes free, or if the temperature remains below freezing but the weather is clear for a few days the ice will sublimate, freeing the rotor again. I think my worst episode has been 4 days so far.

I've been toying with mounting it upside down, then covering the exposed underside (now topside) with a small bowl or pipe cap. Something like this should help with the problem. I'll try to experiment with one of my spares this winter... at least it's on my list of experiments

My unit also got stucked and I found out that the ball bearing was broken. Bought a new high quality ball bearing and now everything's running fine!