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this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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homeassistant
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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io
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I have two Digi WLED controllers a handful of project kits, myself.
The WLED boards drive some addressable LED strings in my living room and on my patio. They hardly count as "project" kits, but learning about interfacing TTL logic with the LED driver boards was a helpful experience. I learned a lot about the different GPIO uses and modes.
For the project kits I've built, I've been focused around presence and environment sensors. Using esphome I've successfully built PIR (AM312) + mmWave radar module (R60A) presence sensors, natural gas detectors for kitchen and basement utility areas, and a water leak sensor for the laundry area. I had goals of building a 5-in-1 presence sensor, but you can buy products for those now; its a solved problem.
I've been considering a design for a sump pit depth gauge because that sounds like useless information that I'd like to have for some reason.
I'll probably get interested in energy management soon, and will look into current clamps and tracking usage at smart receptacles.
I'm planning to do a sump pump depth gauge too at some point as an emergency "pump is busted!" alarm - very interested if you don't mind sharing your thoughts for that design.
My sump pit is pretty shallow, and is dry about half of the time. My challenge is that the sump is on a float switch which doesn't activate until the water level is just about an inch (15mm) below the bottom of my slab. It doesn't take much of a delay for it to overflow.
There are three sensor types I'm aware of: a resistive "dipstick," ultrasonic distance gauge, and a bathymetric depth gauge.
The resistive dipsticks are only about 6in (15cm) in length, and would be good to determine if the water is within that distance of a target water line. I would position it on the side of the pit with the effective upper end set some buffer below the top surface of the slab floor, and possible gram the logic to alert when the water lever rises above the bottom of the slab. I would otherwise be blind to the water level if it is below Tue bottom of to sensor.
The ultrasonic sensor looked interesting, but I have pets and I try to avoid ultrasonics in the environment when I can. It also strikes me as perhaps the least reliable (or most crosstalk-prone) of the sensors because it has a larger field of view, and might be fooled by the equipment in the pit.
That leaves the bathy sensor. Its basically a diaphragm and a pressure sensor you screw to a waterproof housing, and submerge. Placed near the bottom of the pit, it would read the depth of the water by the pressure of the column above it. Most accurate, but also the most expensive. Last I checked, the sensor itself was US$60 on the usual online markets.
Ultimately I'll probably do a length of copper pipe with a 90 elbow and a cap. I'll drill and tap a port through the cap and thread and seal the bathy sensor into it, and feed the wire back up the pipe to the controller. I'm not sure if there a driver for it in ESPHome, but if nothing else I expect I can probably just read the analog voltage and alert on a set point.
I haven't really fleshed it out as a design yet, but that's what I'm most likely to do.