Hi all,
I want to measure the water level of a deep well.
I want to be able to do it permanetly but also easily for any well.
I have done some research but noone seem to have a good solution.
Most are suggesting measuring the pressure level at the bottom. This will be impossible to do without renoving the pump, as the pipe, wires, arrestors, etc would make it impossible to get a sensor down to the bottom.
Also, some suggest using a floater. For the same reason, this wount not work. Others suggest ultrasonic close to the water level. This would not work either as the waterlevel will change too much.
The reason I say this is that I don't want any of these ideas. I need to have something that easily installs at the cap of the well.
So, some info:
- Well is 350ft deep
- Pump is at 270ft
- If no water has been used for a long time, the water level is about 50ft from ground level
- If water is pumped continously for a long time the water will run dry, i.e. below pump.
- This means the water level to measure is 50-270ft from where the sensor will be.
- The well is drilled 8" in diameter, it has a cap on top.
If I tap the cap with a rock or hammer, I can manually listen for the echo. This means pipe, wires, etc does not obstruct the sound.
So I am thinking of using echo. A sound pulse is sent by a speaker, expect echo to return 0.05-0.5 seconds later.
I could build the HW myself (small speaker or to reduce size, just a magnet and coil to make "tap" sound, mic with notch filter for return), but I would expect there are stuff out there that could be used to make it easier.
The cap has a 3/4" PVC pipe for air inlet. I would prefer to just remove that and replace with my sensor. That would be ideal, but of course I have the 8" if needed, but would then have to open the cap, making it harder to use this sensor for temporary measurements.
So what do you all think?
On the SW side, in case you want to know, I am planning to log water level, maybe every hour or so and store in GSheet and Blynk.
All of this is mostly for the nerd in me, but it is also useful to find water level and recovery rate for the well, especially during dry periods.