I’m new to Arduino. In fact, I don’t even own one yet. I’m getting it for father’s day. My twelve year old son got excited about Arduino when I threatened to come up with something that would send him a text message on his phone every time the dog needed water. Then I saw Arduino in Make 25 and thought I could turn my threat into a fun project with my son. What I hope to do is detect the water level in a dog bowl (her name is Abbey), and then send him a text message via our home wifi and then teleco. Following this thread, http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1247247605/all and this example, AvBrand.com - Projects - Automatic Dog Water Dish I was encouraged to follow through on my idea. I’m savvy with networking, but have had little programming and electronics experience. What Auduino parts do I need to order? Does anyone have any sample code for detecting water level and sending a text message? In the end, I hope to have fun with my son on a project and introduce him to programming and engineering. Any guidance is greatly appreciated.
First of all , very nice project!
I often advise people to spent time on the reference and tutorial sites of Arduin.cc as there is so much information there how to program things.
What should the water sensor measure? an ON/OFF condition ? There is water / there is no water?
of There is xyz milliliter of water? a more analog condition.
The fun of the latter is of course on can make nice graphs in Excel how the water evaporates, what happens when the dog drinks and when it is refilled.
Check - MagnetoPot: Liquid Level Contactless Sensor - SEN-09072 - SparkFun Electronics -
Furthermore I advise to order a good watertight casing for the Arduino...
sofar my 2 cents,
Furthermore I advise to order a good
watertightdog resistant casing for the Arduino...
...if Abbey is anything like our dog...
Hmm, what's this attached to my water dish? I better take it outside and bury it for safe keeping!
Hi Robtillaart,
Thanks for the link. I was going for something simple, the level in the water bowl is below a specific range so send a text message to refill it. This looks like it might work, http://www.virtualvillage.com/liquid-water-level-sensor-right-angle-float-switch-009700-026.html. Any idea where I can find code for this project?
Thanks,
George
Think the code for the waterswitch is essential identical to a button. You might need a pull resistor (or set the internal one).