I'm taking my own advice! Bought a mid-sized wire mesh strainer to put in my Davis rain collector. Last week I had a repeat of the 'clogged funnel' syndrome. After quite a rain, I noticed the Davis 'collector' was acting more like its name than its purpose. Sure enough, a look inside revealed a massive amount of very small detritus completely blocking the little funnel outlet!
The Davis debris contraption was no deterrent for the tiny pieces of tree 'dandruff'!
Home Depot has three sizes of these wire mesh sink/drain strainers and it looks like the mid-size one (
Danco 88821) perfectly fits the depression where the normal Davis fits. The strainer should prevent the items that were slipping through the Davis device but the extra surface area should still allow all the water to fall into the see-saw, tip-bucket, drip-counter!
Hopefully, I have edited the hugely inaccurate rate rain values that occur when the debris is cleared and the fake down pour shows up in the data!