Can you paint the Sky?

I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this, but thought I’d throw it out anyway. I live in a rural area and I don’t like putting up obvious objects. For instance, my ham radio antenna is painted camo-brown. What is the advisability of painting the Sky a camo color?

I would advise against it as it may interfere with wind and rain accuracy.

I would guess you can paint it anyway you like, as long as you leave the ultrasonic sensors and the light sensor free from paint. Perhaps your paint will influence the measurement of wind speed a tiny bit, but this difference is so tiny that it would be hard to measure anyway and would fall within the accuracy of the device already.
But if camo-brown makes your sky unit less obvious, than I worry about your blue skies :smile:

I put a ring of prism tape around the top cover on one of my Sky devices, testing it as a bird deterrent:

Camo tape is readily available, and can be peeled off (with a lot of labor) if it doesn’t work out…

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I coated one of my SKY units with a ceramic nano-coating. It helped with the rain-on-plate issue a little. As others have said, if you leave the wind gap clear and don’t paint the light sensor I’d guess you’d be fine. Make sure you use a paint that is compatible with the plastic.

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Also keep in mind that non-white color will cause an increase of heat internally.

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As long as you don’t paint the surfaces within the “wind sampling gap” it shouldn’t affect any of the readings.

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let me add the uv/solar sensor to that. That’s the number one you definitely don’t want to paint :slight_smile:

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Yes, of course. I think that was mentioned. I will probably give it a try, painting the outside minus the entire top surface and the wind sensor gap. I’ll post pictures if I do.

Hi @joe1,

I am intending to paint a Sky to camouflage it in the bush. I plan to use plastic paint primer from the automotive spare parts shop and prepare the surface with a light sanding. Basically I will treat the job the same as painting a plastic part on my car. In the past I have used permanent marker which has worn completely off and silicone tape without any stick also can get a tear and fall off. I am also considering stick on camouflage tape but I dont know how well that will last so perhaps I will just stick some over the paint. I have also considered using camouflage fabric sewn like a sock to fit over it. My purpose is only to measure wind speed and direction so I could perhaps include bird deterrent spikes to prevent them or other animals sitting on it which might bend or break the mount.
cheers Ian :slight_smile:

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Do you know liquid rubber coating?
The advantage is, you can peel it off easily whenever you like.

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You just came up with the solution…Plasti-Dip! Available in rattle spray cans at your local big box store, and intended to peel off when you get tired of the color…

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apparently there is even a manual to do it on amazon: https://tinyurl.com/t5ppxld

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If I paint my tempest, will it still work properly? Are there parts I should not paint?

You can’t paint any area from the area of the wind sensors up.

fact is, you shouldn’t paint any of it, because it is normal for the unit to heat up in the sun, or cool down with some wind. The temperature sensor inside will measure that, but because the unit knows how much sun and wind there is, it can use some physics to compensate for this and still tell you the correct temperature.

Now if you would paint the unit mostly black for example, it will probably heat up more in the sun, but because the unit doesn’t know you painted it, it can’t compensate for it.

(someone with a different opinion just merged this subject with the painting of the sky unit, but that is confusing as the sky unit doesn’t have a temp sensor inside and uses the separate air unit to measure temperature)

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Why would anyone want to paint a SKY, AIR or Tempest°? The original / natural look is what makes those items what they are!

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Some don’t like a bright white object above the ground. And some don’t realize that altering a semi-scientific instrument can and may alter its behavior. Nor do they realize it can void the warranty.

Life is goes on and is too short to worry about two too many things.

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Agreed! ( +20 chatrs: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)

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Yes! Yes it is …