Using a Pi to determine tank levels

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Hi guys.
First post here!

I’m looking to use my pi to tell how much water is in the two tanks (pictured) for my NFT set up, and have the data sent to my phone.

Is this the right place to get guidance and advice on such?
No idea where to start really…

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You can get some idea from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOwGwB9fZBo

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Hi @Tim264341, Welcome to the Forums!!!

Definitely the right place to ask for advice :slight_smile:

A good place to start might be to let us know if you have any experience with coding and electronics to help find recourses that would work best.

We would have all the parts to get a project like this up and running.
In terms of Level sensors, there are a few different types from tape to Pressure and ultrasonic that all are able to measure water levels.

It would then be looking at a software solution fo getting the data to your phone.

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Hi Aaron.
Experienced with kits and soldering - less so much with pi’s and no coding experience… yet…!

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Hey @Tim264341,

Awesome to hear how enthusiastic you are!

Due to your lack of experience, I think it’s best to start with a basic breakdown of what the setup will look like.

My favourite way to think of a project like this is to break it into 3 categories

  1. Controller:
    Your Raspberry Pi. This is effectively the brain of the project. You already own the Pi, so there isn’t really a decision to be made here.

  2. Inputs:
    Your level sensor. As Aaron stated, there are many options each with pros and cons, which we can address later.

  3. Outputs:
    You mentioned you want the data sent to your phone. There are many methods to do this, it can also depend on the capabilities of your Pi, and once again they all have different pros and cons.

.
To start off, when you say “use my Pi”, what specific device are you referring to? There are a variety of options and they each have different out-of-the-box capabilities, and as such will affect the design process.

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Hi Zach.
So I have a RPI 5.
Honestly having the days go to my phone would be optimal, however if it’s simpler… For a first project, I guess I’m happy if it were to display different coloured LEDs for the different levels in the tank…

Tim.

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If you only want to know about a small number of different levels, then you could take advantage of the fact that the walls are glass. A small coloured float in an open tube attached to the inside of the glass could be used with reflective light sensors on the outside of the tank. The reflective marking on the float is designed so that it just spans two sensors - that gives you 2N-1 levels.
The advantage is that it becomes very easy to keep the electronics away from any water.

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Hi All
Or some of these or similar

Non-contact Capacitive Liquid Level Sensor

SKU SEN0368
Cheers Bob

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This is a brilliant suggestion. A pair of these could be used to set an upper and lower limit.

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Hi Tim
Or maybe one of these
“Grove - Water Level Sensor (10cm) for Arduino”
Cheers Bob

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That non contact option looks like it could be a winner.
Obviously, with 2 tanks - I would need 4 sensors for upper and lower limits…
…looking at the wiring diagram, it looks like the red, blue, black and green wires all go to specific points on the pi.
Will there be an issue connecting up 4 of them?

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Hi Tim,

There isn’t an issue I can see. You have enough GPIO pins available and the Pi should happily run all these of it’s 5V pins. You will need a way to split power to them as there are only 2 5V pins available.

Otherwise this should work.

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