Measuring snow

Today, I finally got around to add a heater element to the rain sensor. In theory, I will now be able to measure the precipitation that comes as snow as well.

What I did was to put two 18 ohm (10 watt) resistors, in parallel, on the inside of the collector. I'll need to play a bit with it to find the optimal current, but right now it works just fine with ~0.5 amps, generating about 5 watts in total.

I guess the next logical step would be to add a temperature sensor and a control loop, to steer the power depending on temperature. Then I wouldn't need to turn it off manually summertime :)

Simplicity has its own beauty...