I had some experience with this. I would suggest that putting the box in the water with an attached cable is a bit of a hazard. You could end up losing the whole thing unless you very carefully lay the cable into the stream bed. Access is also an issue – it’s much easier if you can just pull your sensors up from the side.

What we…[Read more]

Have you checked the battery for battery health? While the Arduino is disconnected, connect one probe of your multimeter to the top of the battery, and one to the GND breakout on the datalogging shield.

Also, I would comment out the rtc.adjust function once you’ve set the time initially. I’m not sure if that makes a difference in…[Read more]

I believe that the AquaPlumb system is Capacitive-based! You should be able to make your own, though at that size you may need a capacitance-to-digital converter like the TI FDC1004. I intend to get a free sample from them, and make a very similar system to the Aquaplumb using two pieces of copper tape. Again, these are things that I’ve…[Read more]

That sounds very good. I had similar plans to you!
So, you can definitely use that turbidity meter. The datasheet is a little bit weird (there’s a missing label, and I can’t find the Ground Pin!), but you know that you will have to measure voltage between pin 2 and Ground (I imagine this will be Pin 3 – may need some playing around!). I…[Read more]

That sounds very good. I had similar plans to you!
So, you can definitely use that turbidity meter. The datasheet is a little bit weird (there’s a missing label, and I can’t find the Ground Pin!), but you know that you will have to measure voltage between pin 2 and Ground (I imagine this will be Pin 3 – may need some playing around!). I…[Read more]

I’m trying out a capacitive sensor (similar to this instructable: http://www.instructables.com/id/Capacitive-Fluid-Level-Sensor/). I’ve got some pretty good readings so far, but I’m still doing more tests. Would something like this be of interest? Although I’m not sure if you’d want to go through making 200 of these!

Regards,

Rene

I’m also approaching the level measuring issue, but with a tubular capacitive sensor. Pretty simple circuit, using a TS 555 in astable mode to convert capacitance to frequency, logged by a Seeeduino Stalker. Actually first field test is tonight.

Kevin, are you planning on measuring level/flow/stream velocity?

Regards,

Rene

I’ve been working towards a similar goal to you, and have mostly the same solutions. Developing a stream monitoring system in South Africa though. About the electronics: I’m not sure if you’ve considered this, but the normal Arduino boards draw quite a lot of quiescent current, due to the onboard regulator, USB etc. Are you looking at…[Read more]