I don't think I'll go through with this project. Once the sensor was put in the tank, it was giving readings from things closer than the bottom. There is internal metal for the structure of the tank which gives an echo way before it can reach the bottom of the tank. Had to try it though, so now I know.
Maybe you can just measure the pressure of the water at the exit of you tank since it's a the bottom of it. Than it's quite easy to calculate the quantity of water knowing the size to your water tank, you can also measure the flow at the same time and maybe measure the quality of the water ( resistivity ?).
maybe have a vertical tube screwed to the lid , if you have one , with a floating ball in it , place the sensor directly above it , so it detects the ball floating in the water instead of the water itself , same thing i guess great video as usual and informative
Very interesting, looking forward to Part 2. I've seen a few of these and similar and notice many people just poll the input, tying up the processor for a relatively trivial process. I think it would be better in such cases to programme the timer to generate an interrupt every hour (or however long interval you deem) so other things can be done in the meantime. I would use an ESP8266 or ESP-32 and use the deep sleep mode so it could also be battery powered. Bob
You could mount a thin sheet of plywood on a foam base and float the unit in the tank. The signal would bounce off the plywood and create a clear signal.
Just one thought: may the parking sensor is checking a wide area, so the wawes are not focused. It makes sense for a parking sensor. Did you try with the first "two eyes" sensor maybe?
Are you adding functionality to not allow the pump to turn on if it is not submerged or is that feature already handled? I think I remember you did a video to address that problem because you previously burned out a pump but I may be confusing you with Kris another maker. It would be neat if this tracked if the tank is too empty too full and did all your watering on the pie with a RTC or something all while being networked and plotted. Esp and similar is nice and lower power but might not be enough gpio. I would consider adding a float for backup or at the very least having a heartbeat program running in case the electronics fail and your pump runs dry.
Have a closer look at this point ua-cam.com/video/uV0Q2ha7Eh8/v-deo.html You'll notice the pump has a sensor of its own for if there's no water in there at that level ;) Then again, even in this drought I've still got plenty of water in that tank as I don't use much. When a storm comes through it puts a decent amount of water back in there. This is just a project for the hell of it.
I was planning on using the same exact sensor module to monitor the water level of a drinking water tank at our summer home. I have a faint memory of testing that it does in fact work for measuring water level but the blocker for me was that it doesn't measure distances below 20cm. In my use case, it would be almost 50% of the tank. I ended up using 3 on/off type float switches that had to be mounted inside the water tank. I only get ~25% accuracy on the water level but it's enough for a 20 litre tank. I've got them attached to 3 GPIO pins of an ESP8266 board (a "d1 mini" you can get for around $2-3 on eBay/AliExpress). It sends the values over WiFi. The code is Arduino based so writing it was mostly copying and pasting. I encourage you to look into ESP8266 or ESP32 and Arduino. ESP32 boards can also be programmed using MicroPython if the simplified C/C++ of Arduino doesn't sound tempting! The minimum distance might not be an issue in your use case though as the tank is much bigger.
@@esspe2 Yep theoretically but the current solution has served well for 1.5 years so far. Surprisingly even the float switches didn't start leaking even though I forgot to properly dry it up for the winter. The switches required small holes to be drilled in the tank. When they fail, I'll consider sound/light based solutions again. For my use case an ideal solution would be something only attached through the tank lid. It would allow "hot swapping" a full tank instead of filling it up. :)
LibreNMS integration? 😏 Very neat idea. How are you protecting the electronics? And will you do anything else with the Pi? Does seem like a $4 ESP would work a treat and you could easily figure out how to get analytics.
My thought would be to get those 275 gallon totes that are plastic. You can maybe add a way for the water to flow down the side to minimize the splashing and then add the tech to the screw cap at the top of the tank. I would also maybe have a way that things could be replaceable and repeatable. I'm assuming that those proximity sensors would only last so long in a moist environment so I'd like a way to replace the cheaper components when things begin to act funny. Does anyone know how long these ultrasonic sensors could last in such an environment? I've used one before for a hydroponic desktop plant... so the same concept, but on a much smaller scale. But the water pump would turn off if the water got too low and it would light up LEDs to show you when the water level was right.
Amazed by how easy you always make things look like. I was just wondering, wouldn't a knockoff arduino type thing with wifi be just as suited for this job when you have a central pi that handles the information?
This ultrasonic sensor is waterproof, better suited to measure water levels, where condensation could appear in cold weather, better choice for me. I see you need an external card while the hc04 is directly soldered on its own, not a great deal.
A little piece of advice from someone, who knows the professional ones (2 inch threaded) from industrial use: Make absolutely sure you mount that sensor at least 300mm away from any fixations within the tank as well as the tank wall, otherwise you will get garbage readings now and then. Not nice, when you have programmed an overflow alarm. Furthermore these sensors react kind of allergic to droplets on it and foam swimming on top of the water, as you get garbage with that as well. I know there is a severe difference between the professional solutions and such diy projects, in regards of sensitivity. So above mentioned things may or may not occur. Think of it just as a heads up.
Thanks for the tips. I was half hoping someone would chime in with experience before I got to the actual mounting part. This is only really a bit of an experimental project and nothing serious, but I did also consider that I'd probably want it in the centre of the tank to be as far away from the walls as possible. I'm also going to code for the average value of 10 echos, and disregard any that are way off that average for those 10. Something like that anyway. I'll see how it goes.
Do you mean if I have a reservoir made of concrete, floor is 4.2 square meters, internal height is 1.8 meters, I plce the device into the middle of the ceiling, there sould not be echo-problem.. right?
One remark: why waste a Pi on this? I have the same sensor hooked up to an Attiny85 with a cheap 433MHz transmitter module and all powered by 2 18650s which will have it run for years sampling every 10 minutes (did need a PNP-transistor to turn off power to that ultrasonic sensor's board to get low deep-sleep consumption). In my house I have an ESP8266 (on wired power) with a 433MHz receiver attached, which receives all 433MHz messages from all my stuff (doorbell, letterbox, remote controls, ...) and turns it into UDP packets over WIFI to my central Pi controlling everything from the "server room" (aka garage).
Rain water for flushing the crapper, what a waste but I guess you live in an acid rain area, about all out mains water here is good for is flushing!! I may have to try this project for my rain water tank as no idea how much is in it!!
I don't think I'll go through with this project. Once the sensor was put in the tank, it was giving readings from things closer than the bottom. There is internal metal for the structure of the tank which gives an echo way before it can reach the bottom of the tank. Had to try it though, so now I know.
How about pointing the sensor inside an open ended tube inside (or out) off the tank?
Maybe you can just measure the pressure of the water at the exit of you tank since it's a the bottom of it.
Than it's quite easy to calculate the quantity of water knowing the size to your water tank, you can also measure the flow at the same time and maybe measure the quality of the water ( resistivity ?).
A pressure sensor at the bottom of the tank is the way to go.
maybe have a vertical tube screwed to the lid , if you have one , with a floating ball in it , place the sensor directly above it , so it detects the ball floating in the water instead of the water itself , same thing i guess
great video as usual and informative
Very interesting, looking forward to Part 2. I've seen a few of these and similar and notice many people just poll the input, tying up the processor for a relatively trivial process. I think it would be better in such cases to programme the timer to generate an interrupt every hour (or however long interval you deem) so other things can be done in the meantime. I would use an ESP8266 or ESP-32 and use the deep sleep mode so it could also be battery powered. Bob
There is a distinct lack of "smart" tank level sensors as well as pool thermometers. Nice work so far and I am looking forward to the next video.
What is the part number for the sensor? Not the sr04 one.
You should take a look into ESPs (e. g. ESP8266, ESP-32). They're a much better choice for sensor projects.
Definitely! Much lower power than raspberry pi, much cheaper, and still overkill. ;-)
Carl Howard And no hassle keeping Linux updated on a fragile SD card.
Interested in the esp's. I need to monitor water tank levels in a boat. Any links?
@@martinlaforest1351 Just search for esp32 on Amazon. They're a dime a dozen.
flash it with tasmota and integrate it with mqtt then you can do a lot more things with it
Mind sharing the name of the circuit board for the transducer?
may i get the coding link .please
You could mount a thin sheet of plywood on a foam base and float the unit in the tank. The signal would bounce off the plywood and create a clear signal.
With so many RPi around the house how do you go about keeping them all updated? Automatically/Manual or never?
If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it
Just one thought: may the parking sensor is checking a wide area, so the wawes are not focused. It makes sense for a parking sensor.
Did you try with the first "two eyes" sensor maybe?
Whats the model of the small sensor? What is hte minimal distance it can give?
Jsn sr04t have a minimum distance of 20 cm
Are you adding functionality to not allow the pump to turn on if it is not submerged or is that feature already handled? I think I remember you did a video to address that problem because you previously burned out a pump but I may be confusing you with Kris another maker. It would be neat if this tracked if the tank is too empty too full and did all your watering on the pie with a RTC or something all while being networked and plotted. Esp and similar is nice and lower power but might not be enough gpio. I would consider adding a float for backup or at the very least having a heartbeat program running in case the electronics fail and your pump runs dry.
Have a closer look at this point ua-cam.com/video/uV0Q2ha7Eh8/v-deo.html
You'll notice the pump has a sensor of its own for if there's no water in there at that level ;)
Then again, even in this drought I've still got plenty of water in that tank as I don't use much. When a storm comes through it puts a decent amount of water back in there. This is just a project for the hell of it.
I was planning on using the same exact sensor module to monitor the water level of a drinking water tank at our summer home. I have a faint memory of testing that it does in fact work for measuring water level but the blocker for me was that it doesn't measure distances below 20cm. In my use case, it would be almost 50% of the tank.
I ended up using 3 on/off type float switches that had to be mounted inside the water tank. I only get ~25% accuracy on the water level but it's enough for a 20 litre tank. I've got them attached to 3 GPIO pins of an ESP8266 board (a "d1 mini" you can get for around $2-3 on eBay/AliExpress). It sends the values over WiFi. The code is Arduino based so writing it was mostly copying and pasting. I encourage you to look into ESP8266 or ESP32 and Arduino. ESP32 boards can also be programmed using MicroPython if the simplified C/C++ of Arduino doesn't sound tempting!
The minimum distance might not be an issue in your use case though as the tank is much bigger.
Maybe you could use a >20 cm tube to get the minimum distance you need ?
@@esspe2 Yep theoretically but the current solution has served well for 1.5 years so far. Surprisingly even the float switches didn't start leaking even though I forgot to properly dry it up for the winter. The switches required small holes to be drilled in the tank. When they fail, I'll consider sound/light based solutions again. For my use case an ideal solution would be something only attached through the tank lid. It would allow "hot swapping" a full tank instead of filling it up. :)
LibreNMS integration? 😏 Very neat idea. How are you protecting the electronics? And will you do anything else with the Pi? Does seem like a $4 ESP would work a treat and you could easily figure out how to get analytics.
I'm way ahead of you mate.
snipboard.io/BpLMaS.jpg
The sensor isn't in the tank yet, but I'm ready to go. Just wait for part 2
My thought would be to get those 275 gallon totes that are plastic. You can maybe add a way for the water to flow down the side to minimize the splashing and then add the tech to the screw cap at the top of the tank. I would also maybe have a way that things could be replaceable and repeatable. I'm assuming that those proximity sensors would only last so long in a moist environment so I'd like a way to replace the cheaper components when things begin to act funny. Does anyone know how long these ultrasonic sensors could last in such an environment? I've used one before for a hydroponic desktop plant... so the same concept, but on a much smaller scale. But the water pump would turn off if the water got too low and it would light up LEDs to show you when the water level was right.
can you put the code here please
Amazed by how easy you always make things look like. I was just wondering, wouldn't a knockoff arduino type thing with wifi be just as suited for this job when you have a central pi that handles the information?
This ultrasonic sensor is waterproof, better suited to measure water levels, where condensation could appear in cold weather, better choice for me. I see you need an external card while the hc04 is directly soldered on its own, not a great deal.
A little piece of advice from someone, who knows the professional ones (2 inch threaded) from industrial use:
Make absolutely sure you mount that sensor at least 300mm away from any fixations within the tank as well as the tank wall, otherwise you will get garbage readings now and then. Not nice, when you have programmed an overflow alarm.
Furthermore these sensors react kind of allergic to droplets on it and foam swimming on top of the water, as you get garbage with that as well.
I know there is a severe difference between the professional solutions and such diy projects, in regards of sensitivity. So above mentioned things may or may not occur. Think of it just as a heads up.
Thanks for the tips. I was half hoping someone would chime in with experience before I got to the actual mounting part.
This is only really a bit of an experimental project and nothing serious, but I did also consider that I'd probably want it in the centre of the tank to be as far away from the walls as possible.
I'm also going to code for the average value of 10 echos, and disregard any that are way off that average for those 10. Something like that anyway. I'll see how it goes.
Do you mean if I have a reservoir made of concrete, floor is 4.2 square meters, internal height is 1.8 meters, I plce the device into the middle of the ceiling, there sould not be echo-problem.. right?
@@tildatild8115 From my experience there should be no problem with that.
Just watch out that there are no pipes, baffles or other fixtures in its way.
One remark: why waste a Pi on this? I have the same sensor hooked up to an Attiny85 with a cheap 433MHz transmitter module and all powered by 2 18650s which will have it run for years sampling every 10 minutes (did need a PNP-transistor to turn off power to that ultrasonic sensor's board to get low deep-sleep consumption). In my house I have an ESP8266 (on wired power) with a 433MHz receiver attached, which receives all 433MHz messages from all my stuff (doorbell, letterbox, remote controls, ...) and turns it into UDP packets over WIFI to my central Pi controlling everything from the "server room" (aka garage).
And part 2 of this was never made.
Don't bother watching, guys.
Yeah, don't watch this shit
try a lazer beam , or a captive transducer enjoy :-)
Subidydubbed. Nice one
Rain water for flushing the crapper, what a waste but I guess you live in an acid rain area, about all out mains water here is good for is flushing!! I may have to try this project for my rain water tank as no idea how much is in it!!