Remote water level meter – a need of the hour

In the download section below you will find the firmware as described in the Elektor Magazine article. Submitted by: Somnath Bera.

Sir, This is a cheap yet very precise and versatile remote contact less water level monitoring system. The system is based on Arduino and 433 mhz radio communication. The software and the resources are available at this location. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3E3LcSKoM-6OU02MzI4WVlKWVU/view?usp=sharing Rgds. s.Bera

Project Elements

figure-3-5.jpg (JPG, 82.08 KB)

figure-2-4.jpg (JPG, 156.31 KB)

160626-11.zip (ZIP)

Software as described in the Elektor Magazine article

Remote-contactless-level-indicator.zip (ZIP)

Project files

Discussion (3 comments)

Manfred Häfner 7 years ago

What is the lifetime of these cheap ultrasonic sensors in the humid ambient air ?

KENNETH MCKINNON 7 years ago

There is very little error checking in the code, and the use of the external libraries means you have little control over the operation, so the chance of lock-up or undesireable conditions would be fairly high.
I think that it could enhanced using a watch-dog timer type thing to force a reset when things go wrong. A watchdog should be a hardware implementation that is separate from the core processor, rather than software. Doing a quick search I found this...
http://www.instructables.com/id/External-Hardware-Watchdog/
The principle is if the watchdog is not tickled every so often, it forces a reset condition. For most of my stuff, I would use a heartbeat timer (normally about 1/2 second) to reset the watchdog as well as toggle an LED so the user can see the stuff is working.
Getting really fancy some processors have built in watchdogs that will flip a bit to say the reset was watchdog induced and that can be checked on the reboot to do some alternative action.... I have never used that, but then again, none of my stuff is in any safety critical equipment.

bera 7 years ago

Might be a voltage issue. Use a voltage regulator and see.

Hans-Theo Hering 7 years ago

The remote water meter works very good. But sometimes the display get "frozen". The counter status stands still. After a reset everything works well.....But sometimes the display get "frozen" again. What could it be? Do you have any help for me?

3 Comment(s)

KENNETH MCKINNON 7 years ago

The ultrasonic sensor is not shown on the Schematic, hence the previous comment. BTW, most creative use of a badminton racket.

bera 7 years ago

Sir,

Here's the complete project in one zip file. The project description file is included in doc & pdf file as well. The Arduino sketches, additional header files and the prototype pics are also included in the zip file.

Rgds.

Bera

Remote contact less level indicator (1470kb)

KENNETH MCKINNON 7 years ago

I figured something was missing. Why have a reciever without a transmitter.. and no sensor, I think that is what confused everyone. You indicated it was a bit of a short project.... whatproblem where you trying to solve?

bera 7 years ago

Hey,

I am Somnath Bera. This project is a copy of my original project at Elektor Lab . The schematic shown here is the receiver part only. The Transmitter part is not copied at all that's why it seems like a nebulous use of Badminton Racket !

Bera