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Off-Grid MakerShop Project - Water Tank Monitoring System
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  • Author Author: KalebTheMaker
  • Date Created: 18 Feb 2023 8:59 PM Date Created
  • Views 12119 views
  • Likes 12 likes
  • Comments 58 comments
  • micro-hydro
  • sensors
  • homestead
  • water
  • solar
  • automation
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Project - Water Tank Monitoring System

KalebTheMaker
KalebTheMaker
18 Feb 2023

Hi all,

On Bonesnapper Ridge, I have a fairly large system for storing water and I would like to monitor the entire system. This topic started to take off on another thread, so I thought I would make a new post to keep it all in one place and give a little more background.

Wells

There are multiple wells on the property, but I am focused on three of them. These are "horizontal wells" or tapped springs. They are drilled horizontally into the side of the hill and are gravity fed to a set of tanks at the bottom of the property. These wells flow 24/7 365 days a year. The wells flow into the tanks, and then there are overflow pipes that overflow into a culvert. As I said, 24/7. Maybe I could install very small turbines on these to generate a little bit of power?

Tanks

There are two main tank sites on the property. There are three ~2500 gallon tanks at the well site which is at the lower elevation of the property. There are three more ~2500 gallon tanks at the highest elevation of the property. There is also one 2500 gallon tank right in between these two sets of tanks in the middle of the elevation. The bottom tanks are plumbed all the way up to the top tanks and flows through that middle tank. Note: The lower tanks are 100% full until I pump, then it takes about 8 hours to fill up what I pumped out.

Pumping

To get water from the lower tanks to the upper tanks that feed the house/shop, currently, I have to drive down to the lower tanks and fire up a gas-powered honda water pump (currently broken... yay another project!). On a full tank of gas, this can pump something like 1800 gallons. So I would have to pump several tanks of gas worth to fill up the upper tanks. I have to open and close a few valves manually in this process.

Water Usage

I am surprised at how little water I have been using. I don't have laundry up here yet, so that will add a bit, but as of now, it's quite low. Last time I pumped I marked it on the upper tank before I pumped, and then I marked it off after the pump. That's where I came up with the approximate 1800 gallons on a tank of gas. It has been a few months since I have pumped water, and there is still plenty in the upper tanks.

Sensor Data & System Design

My goal at the end of a few projects is to have sensors in each of the tanks ( seven tanks ) and report that back to MQTT or an InfluxDB database here at the house. Build a solar or hydro-powered pumping system at the bottom tanks, so that when the top tanks get below a certain threshold, the pump will automatically turn on and pump water until a threshold is met. 

What data do I need out of the tank sensors?

The nerd in me wants it down to the gallon. But that's going to be more difficult to achieve, and in the system design, I don't really need that. I can probably get away with down to the 100 or 1000 gallon. The resolution will determine how often I pump, and the design of the pump system will also be a factor in how often I can pump. for example, if the pump and battery can pump 100 gallons on a full charge, then I have to know how long it takes to gain a full charge on the battery using either solar or hydro. Then I can set my thresholds in the system for how often to pump. I'll probably end up looking at the state of charge of the pump batteries and determining if it can pump as well.

Maybe for now, I will have to settle for somewhere in the middle and have a minimum resolution of 500 gallons. If it's lower than that great, if it's higher? Well, I will just have to deal with it. 

The order of execution

I want to get the sensors built first, and then the rest of the monitoring system and the pumping system will come at a later date. I would like to get all of it done this summer, but there is a LOT to do here and it's not critical. But the senors are critical to my data-hungry brain, and sore legs from hiking up the hill to check water levels. 

I would love to hear your feedback on this! Some of this topic has been discussed on the thread below, so please check that out. 

/challenges-projects/element14-presents/b/off-grid-makershop/posts/off-grid-maker-shop-general-update

I will add some pictures first thing tomorrow to this post. I'm in a rush to get out of this house this morning. 

Well and Tank Pictures:

Upper Tanks

image

Lower Tanks  

image

Primary Well

image

Secondary Well

image

Tertiary Well

image

The second and third wells are tied together, they do not have as much output as the primary well. 

Elevation Data

Site Elevation (m) Elevation (ft) Barometric Pressure (mb)
House 672.7 2207 1019
Upper Tanks 698 2290 1016
Middle Tank 646.8 2122 1022
Primary Solar Site 628.5 2062 1024
Lower Tanks 622.7 2043 1026
Primary Well 620.6 2055 1025
Secondary Well 00 626.4 2066 1024
Secondary Well 01 630.6 2069 (eyeballed) 1024

NOTE: Updated for the third time. 

For this data I took my Garmin 64s out with barometric pressure turned on. When I got the area the elevation would fluctuate wildly starting low, then gradually going up until it stabilized. This took about three minutes. I waited at each site for appx three minutes until it stabilized. I recorded the barometric pressure for Dave. 

However, The difference between the "Primary Solar Site" and "Lower Tanks" being ~6' does not seem right. The road from the solar site to the wells and tanks goes downhill for quite a ways, then up just a little. There is no line of sight, and I could be deceived, but I really do not think so.  "Lower Tanks" to "Primary Well" seems off as well, data shows ~12', but I think it's more like 5-8'. 

Thanks!

-Kaleb

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  • KalebTheMaker
    KalebTheMaker over 1 year ago

    Hi all, I am still here, and still at it. This project is finally coming up and I have done some testing. I've got this update and some questions about LoRa if anyone has experience with it. 

    First off, I think I was trying to be too precise with the original measurements, and realized that the only data that is truly meaningful to me is data that lets me know when I need to pump. Other than that, how long until I have to pump is a luxury and can probably be extrapolated over time.

    For my testing, I bought an analog water pressure sensor and put it on a hose bib at the house. With about 25% tanks full, I was reading 30psi. So I just went for a 100 psi transducer. I connected that to an esp32 and started reading data.

    The esp32 is 3.3v, and the transducer is 5v. But since I do not need an absolute reading, it's fine. Whatever the MCU outputs between 0-4095 I can interpolate to a percentage when I get a reading at full and a reading at empty. I am collecting that data through a cycle of pumping to try to find those values. And once I get a *full* reading, I can make the decision to get a lower pressure transducer if needed.

    Currently it is connected to the water main, and the MCU is being powered by a cheap PWM solar charger, 20w panel and a 5Ah SLA battery. So far so good!

    The plan will be to make at least three of these with the solar setup so they can be at the tanks.The upper tanks (seasonal well tanks) is where my house water is stored, and I can measure that at the house. The middle tank has a pretty good LOS shot from the shop, and the three spring tanks are *almost* visible from the shop. I think LoRa might be the right solution here? I have very little experience with it, but I would like to learn. I picked up a couple of the heltec "wireless stick" V3's and that is what I am testing on, but for now just using the WiFi module to collect the data.

    The main thing I feel like I am having a hard time figuring out is if I *need* to have a LoRa concentrator/gateway to collect data in a multipoint-to-point layout. Or if I can just use one of these modules to collect data from the rest of the modules?  Or, maybe I should be using a mesh system like meshtastic. I will have to play with that to see if I can add to the firmware somehow to collect data from GPIO and send it along. So far a lot of the examples are just examples of passing canned data.

    Those would be my questions about LoRa. Would a gateway required? Is a mesh system going to be the best?

    Ill get some pictures of the shop up soon!

    -KalebTheMaker

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 1 year ago in reply to beacon_dave

    Given that the amount of data is so small and the data rate could be very slow, just wondering if we have overlooked  options for a remote transducer from the go. 

    Do you have any line-of-sight from the house to close to the the upper water tank area ?

    If you have line-of-sight close by, then LoRa sounds like it could be an option. ( Could even get Doug's 'Sammy Semaphore' to signal it 'old school' ! )

    You could also perhaps do it mechanically with some plumbing. You know that the water in a tube will find its own level, so you could use this knowledge to push a fluorescent float up and down so that you can observe visibly from the house. You could do similar with a float and cable arrangement to some sort of a flag/pointer.

    If you can see it then so can a camera, which means you can use OpenCV to read it and MQTT it.

    Also what's the surface distance between the water tanks and the house ? 

    If the surface distance isn't too great, then a low cost twisted pair run could keep you going for a bit until nature takes its toll. 

    There is also the water pipe itself - you could perhaps send the data acoustically or optically down the water in it.

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 1 year ago in reply to KalebTheMaker

    Blimey, how much coffee are you planning on drinking there this morning ? Slight smile

    For maximum accuracy and resolution the transducer would probably ideally be placed at the tank manifold where all three outlets combine into the downpipe such that the operating range of the transducer closely matches the range from full to empty and so you are making use of most of the working range. You could probably get close to a resolution of one 'Bonesnapper coffee cup' if that was the case Slight smile

    However that isn't a quick solution to put in place as you would need to get the signal back down to the house.

    At the house, with an absolute transducer, you will be measuring around 1Bar of atmospheric pressure before you even start filling the downpipe.

    If you reckon you have around 83' (25.3m) of height between the house and the base of the tank which will consume roughly another 2.5Bar of your 4Bar transducer range when filled with water. So that's about 3.5Bar out of 4Bar just to get to reading tank empty stage.

    The tank is around 8' (2.43m) in height so let's say that is about 0.25Bar between tank empty and tank full and finally a headroom of about 0.25Bar to the transducer max value.

    So you have a 4Bar absolute transducer of which around a 0.25Bar portion at the upper end of the range will be influenced by water level changes in the tank.

    If you connect the 0-5V output of the transducer to the AtoD of the ESP32 then you probably aren't going to get much resolution for monitoring your water level. If you can rescale that 0 to 5V output so the AtoD is working across closer to the 4-5V range then you may be able to increase the resolution to a more useful amount. Perhaps keep an eye on the transducer accuracy though.

    A gauge type transducer would potentially get you more usable range as you aren't measuring around 1Bar of atmospheric pressure before you even start filling the downpipe. On a 4Bar transducer that's around 25% of the working range.

    However if you replace the 4Bar absolute transducer with a 4Bar gauge transducer you won't achieve much as you'll just end up with an additional 1Bar of headroom at the upper end and the area of interest is still 0.25Bar within that 4Bar range.

    If you replace the 4Bar absolute transducer with a 3Bar gauge sensor then you do improve things as that 0.25Bar becomes more of the working range, but it is still quite small as the head in the down pipe is still about ten times that of the head in the tank.

    If you can stick the transducer at the top of a 25m vertical pipe at the house, you could use a 0.25Bar gauge transducer... Slight smile

    I think I need a coffee now... Coffee

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  • KalebTheMaker
    KalebTheMaker over 1 year ago in reply to beacon_dave

    Pumped a couple thousand gallons yesterday, so coffee it is this morning!

    The 1.25" (31.75mm) PVC water main runs right next to the house, which is a direct shot from the tanks. I was thinking of putting the transducer out there before it gets to the house's plumbing. Its kind of a mess the way the previous owner did the plumbing there and I need to rebuild that part anyway. I would like a shut-off valve there as well. Does that make any difference in what you were saying?

    And I should probably be looking at a "gauge" type transducer?

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  • beacon_dave
    beacon_dave over 1 year ago in reply to KalebTheMaker

    "...This has become somewhat of a priority at the moment. At least in the sense that when I woke up this morning there was no water to make coffee!..."

    Time to 'wake up and smell the coffee' perhaps ?
    oh... wait... perhaps not in this case  Slight smile

    Downside to locating the transducer in the house is that it means that only a small amount of the range is actually measuring the water level in the tank. Similar issue to that of your friend across the valley. So about 10% of the liquid range will be tank level and 90% supply pipe level.

    In addition, with an absolute transducer then around 25% of the range will be lost to air pressure.   

    Might need to look at pre-processing the analogue signal so that the AtoD is only measuring the upper range of the transducer output to get more resolution of the tank water level and less of the pipe level or air pressure.

    Perhaps might need to consider using an external AtoD convertor to reduce the effects of internal microcontroller noise on the AtoD.

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