So ive been asked to install a sensor inside a rainpit to measure how much water is inside the rain pit at all time. I'm going to use an ultrasonic distance sensor for this. And theres an Outlet inside the pit (I was also confused about this lol) The thing is i'm not sure how i'm going to display the data. It needs to be wireless.
So that i can display the amout of water on a liquiddisplay inside the laundry room a couple of feet away from the waterpit. I'm pretty sure i'm not going to be able to use the radio sender/reciever modules i have laying around because of the concrete wall between the reciever and sender. If anyone has an idea as to how i can reliably(I dont want to have to climb into the waterpair the repair the sender every week or so) send this data. Please let me know!
Thanks in advance!
How will You power that sensor?
The distance is a few feet. Cables would be my first choice.
Set up a test and try radio as You alread have the stuff.
There might be a range of wireless modules that could work, it rather depends on how high\thick the concrete wall is and how much steel is in it.
There will be lots of suggestions I am sure, but the praticality is that you would need to test a particular module on the actual site.
Of all the radio modules, the ones that stand out in terms of distance coverage (i.e. can deal with the weakest signals) are LoRa modules. If they dont work I doubt anything else will.
It is allowed to put antennas on the end of a cable, so it could be positoned on the top of the wall. There would be some loss in the cable, but probably not as much as a concrete wall.
Can you mount the Arduino so that a wireless module connected with it would have a clear (or nearly clear) line of sight to the Arduino with the other wireless module? I don't think the Arduino needs to be particularly close to the ultrasonic sensor module.
The cheap nRF24L01+ transceiver modules work very well but 2.4GHz signals are not good at penetrating dense concrete. Have a look at this Simple nRF24L01+ Tutorial.
...R
Railroader:
How will You power that sensor?
The distance is a few feet. Cables would be my first choice.
Set up a test and try radio as You alread have the stuff.
There is an outlet inside of the rain pit
Robin2:
Can you mount the Arduino so that a wireless module connected with it would have a clear (or nearly clear) line of sight to the Arduino with the other wireless module? I don't think the Arduino needs to be particularly close to the ultrasonic sensor module.The cheap nRF24L01+ transceiver modules work very well but 2.4GHz signals are not good at penetrating dense concrete. Have a look at this Simple nRF24L01+ Tutorial.
...R
I actually have those laying around...
But in my experience controlling brushless motors with them a concrete wall stops the data from going trough...
I'm going to do some testing and ill let you know if this works.
RubenBuildsStuff:
But in my experience controlling brushless motors with them a concrete wall stops the data from going trough...
That's why I was suggesting mounting the Arduino where the signal is not shielded by the wall.
The 434MHz HC12 modules should have better penetration, but I have not used them myself.
...R
Seems expensive and a little complicated but you can send ethernet over a powerline.
edmcguirk:
Seems expensive and a little complicated but you can send ethernet over a powerline.
You want to run that by me again?
There is a power outlet in the rainpit. The power supply to the arduino could also be the signal path instead of wireless.
That would require buying a pair of powerline ethernet ports and getting an ethernet shield or some other way to get ethernet to arduino.
It seems a bit expensive and a little complicated to me but it is an alternative way to get the signal between the rainpit and laundry room.
edmcguirk:
Seems expensive and a little complicated but you can send ethernet over a powerline.
That might no be legal depending on the country.
If running wires is out, then you might try one of the ESP wifi boards. Keep the wifi board up high out of the pit and put the sensors down where they need to be. Set the board up as a web server and you probably could use a cell phone to monitor the pit level.
Nothing you buy will make your communications "reliable". You have to make it reliable with your hardware and your software.
Paul