My aim is to determine the amount of salt in water. For the past few days I've looked into difference sensors such as the one from Vernier.com and many others which includes probes, however, they are all very pricey.
My question is that I found this water level/salinity sensor online on newegg newegg and I am not sure if it is able to output the EC value even though it is stated in the title. Reason being is that it is super cheap compared to the next options and also, in the description it only goes into the coding of determine the water level and not salinity.
Does anyone have experience with these type of sensors and do you think it'll help me in determining the EC levels? Sorry I am still a noob in electronics
Edit: If all works well, I am hoping to use that sensor along with this code
The molarity of salt or any other electrolyte in water will affect it's conductiviy. In principle this could be measured by any pair of electrodes.
In practice the the electrodes should be made of a corrosion-resistant metal - eg gold or platinum.
They should be driven by a low frequency ac source, such that the conductivity part of the current dominates that due to the dielectric constant. The ac is to avoid the inevitable polarisation of the electrodes.
The conductivity cell so formed will need to be calibrated against known concentrations of salt, and against temperature. A typical cell will have 2 electrodes, each 1cm square, spaced 1cm apart. These are available from lab suppliers.
The link given does not say of what metal the electrodes are made, nor what form the energising voltage takes . Hence I cannot comment on it's suitability.
My aim is to determine the amount of salt in water. For the past few days I've looked into difference sensors such as the one from Vernier.com and many others which includes probes, however, they are all very pricey.
Thanks!
For salt in pure water the conductivity approach may work.
However if this is municipal water supply other contaminants will seriously skew the results.
True salt content will be very expensive to implement electronically.
I have previously used chemical test kits for the evaluation of boiler feed water, they are time consuming, electronic monitoring is very expensive.
Most municipal supplies are reasonably constant though so calibration may be enough for you.
I won't need it to be very accurate just a rough approximate should be ok and to determine when it has reach saturation point in a small water tank. There seems to be limited detailed resources online on a DIY approach, but I found this one which seems promising and doable for me:
I won't need it to be very accurate just a rough approximate should be ok and to determine when it has reach saturation point in a small water tank. There seems to be limited detailed resources online on a DIY approach, but I found this one which seems promising and doable for me:
That looks like a reasonable method. Please be aware there are very many types of metal called "stainless steel". Please research the mix number best suited for immersion in salt water.