Water sensor

[happybunny]

Since my arc isn't built yet, and we have recieved 27 feet of rain here in New England in the past 7 days, my basement flooded again.

The pump went out sometime overnight and i had 3-4 inches of water in my basement/computer room this morning.

I am smart enough, however, to have everything up off the floor (except my sun workstation!), so nothing was damaged but the carpet.

So i was thinking today, why not put an H2O sensor in and have one of the dozen or so computers page/email me when there is water present?

But......I am not a programmer, nor do I have any idea how to interface software with a hardware sensor (that I can't actually find at present on the web).

So the quetion is, where do I begin?

A quick google search finds alarm sensors, but no interface to a computer serial port...they just start screaming if they get wet.

Even if i did find one, where do I start with such a thing, to interface with an OS to trigger an action?

Does someone know of a (cheap) product to do this?

Not only does is seem like a practical project for the house, I'm sure it will be a good learning experiance as well.

Thanks for any advise...I'll be out collecting animals

[je_fro]

Let the Sun dry out and it'll be fine for the task :D

[mrrangerman43]

I have a friend that works at a lagoon system, when one of the pumps fail for the houses that he services, and the water level gets to high it will email him, if I remember right, and it will call him on his cell. I will talk to him tomarrow 5/17/06 and find out what kind of interface the system uses.

[hard candy]

Since my arc isn't built yet, and we have recieved 27 feet of rain here in New England in the past 7 days, my basement flooded again.

The pump went out sometime overnight and i had 3-4 inches of water in my basement/computer room this morning.

I am smart enough, however, to have everything up off the floor (except my sun workstation!), so nothing was damaged but the carpet.

So i was thinking today, why not put an H2O sensor in and have one of the dozen or so computers page/email me when there is water present?

But......I am not a programmer, nor do I have any idea how to interface software with a hardware sensor (that I can't actually find at present on the web).

So the quetion is, where do I begin?

A quick google search finds alarm sensors, but no interface to a computer serial port...they just start screaming if they get wet.

Even if i did find one, where do I start with such a thing, to interface with an OS to trigger an action?

Does someone know of a (cheap) product to do this?

Not only does is seem like a practical project for the house, I'm sure it will be a good learning experiance as well.

Thanks for any advise...I'll be out collecting animals

Well, if you get 27 feet of rain, you'll need more than an alarm. :)

Linux Journal (http://www.linuxjournal.com/search/node/sensor+) has a number of articles.

[hard candy]

Found this:
Skylink Automatic Dialer (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007UBYPS/qid=1147787312/sr=1-44/ref=sr_1_44/002-1976936-9373660?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=hi&v=glance&n=228013) $90
which will work with the Flood detector (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007UEBB2/qid=1147787480/sr=1-28/ref=sr_1_28/002-1976936-9373660?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=hi&v=glance&n=228013) $20

[mrrangerman43]

Well I talked to my friend today and he said, one of there systems is called a sensaphone so I looked it up and this is what I found.

http://www.alarms247.com/category_17.htm

[happybunny]

great links....thanks a bunch

[EnigmaOne]

Well, if you get 27 feet of rain, you'll need more than an alarm.

Definitely an Ark.

I wonder what Norm Abrahms is doing this week, on The New Yankee Workshop?

[StarKnight83]

just use a picmicro talking to say a serial port, and just poll it form time to time w/ a script. from there its fairly easy for it to do various things such as email you and what not else.. If you need a stand-alone bit hmmm....a microcontroller & an network chip would work; not sure about how to get it to email you (not powerful enough to run linux) so you'd need to hardcode the message and its delivery methond

[dkeav]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16896101903

[je_fro]

It takes a real supershopper to find something like that :D

[dkeav]

was on the frontpage in the deals thingy

[gehidore]

Found this:
Skylink Automatic Dialer (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007UBYPS/qid=1147787312/sr=1-44/ref=sr_1_44/002-1976936-9373660?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=hi&v=glance&n=228013) $90
which will work with the Flood detector (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007UEBB2/qid=1147787480/sr=1-28/ref=sr_1_28/002-1976936-9373660?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=hi&v=glance&n=228013) $20
Knowing when there's water in your basement, Priceless... :cool: