Introduction: Water Leak Detector

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About: Phidgets make your ideas real. Reliable sensors, motor controllers, relays and more connect computers and technology to the real world. Applications include robotics, data acquisition, monitoring, automation, …

If you've ever worried about coming home to a flooded basement, this project is for you.

We will show you how to create a water leak detection system that will send you a text message when a leak has been detected.

Step 1: Skills Required

For this project, all you will need is some basic programming knowledge! We wrote the program that measures the water sensor and sends a text in C.

Step 2: Components/Hardware List

Here is what we used:

Step 3: Project Overview

This project will have the following layout:

  • PhidgetSBC4 will run our program code (written in C). It will be connected to the water sensor through the built in VINT Hub.
  • If the water sensor indicates that water is present, the SBC will use the email to text feature that most wireless carriers support to send a text message.

Step 4: Prepping Hardware

Our sensor will likely be coming into contact with water (especially during testing), so it is important that we protect the PCB components. To do this, we used a conformal coating on the PCB.

Step 5: Writing Code

All the code for this project is already written and is included in the file waterLeakDetector.c, so if you want to implement it, all you will have to do is modify a few things (serial numbers,email address, etc.) and compile it.

Important: before installing, you will have to set up libcurl on your SBC. Open the terminal and enter the following command:

sudo apt-get install libcurl4-gnutls-dev


For more information on how to compile C programs on the SBC, check out these links:

Here is a quick overview of the code:

  • Create a VoltageInput object
  • Map the VoltageInput object to the water sensor. See this video for more information.
  • In while loop, read water sensor value, if water level is dangerous, send a text message. If not continue.
  • Sleep for one second and repeat

Attachments

Step 6: Questions?

If you have any questions about the project, let us know in the comments section!

Thanks for reading