I've had a sonarmote on my sump pump to measure the water levels. I have it on one side and the sump pump is on the other. It always reads somewhere around 15-20cm which is the distance to the sump pump itself. I took 4" pipe and drilled multiple holes to equalize the water level and placed the sonarmote inside it. Sometimes it reads correctly about 40cm and a min later at 9cm or 20cm or anywhere in between. Any suggestions?
You have to put it somewhere where it has enough clearing to the water surface with no objects in front.
It uses sound, so anything that reflects sound will mess up the reading. Plastic is very reflective so the pipe might not work that well for that reason.
My sump pump sits off center, the mote is installed on the bottom of the sump cover with velcro, reads the water just fine, but I have to be careful to put it flat horizontally.
i drilled holes in my sump cover so it sits on top but the sensor sticks through. my sump is offset to the side also with the sonarmote on the other side. i'll look when i get home and make sure its perfectly perpendicular to the water. thanks
Ok I tried moving it. I'll give that a shot. I have gotten what seems like reasonable measurements and occasionally it'll read an errant reading like 8 then the next reading is back around 23cm. I know the water level isn't 8cm. This triggers my alert though. Is there a way I can set a delay of like 5 minutes so if the water level stays less than 15cm (for example) for more than 5 minutes then it'll alert but if it reads above the set reading it won't alert?
Sure, you can do it in the mote, or you can code some javascript in the SMS event to remember the history and decide when to send the alert.
Here's something else to try - put the mote on something floating on the water. Then it will measure the distance to the cover/lid.
That would probably work pretty good. I think I've got it for now. If I have more trouble I'll find something floating to put it on. I did get a 12vdc to 5vdc converter. Jst connector on the mote. Connected to the backup battery for my sump pump. Figure that should be good for a while. Attached is a photo of my setup