Trend measuring in 18m deep water well

[ErnieFR]

Hi there, I just realised my project to measure and register the water level in our well (in order to predit running dry), may be of interest for others here as well. Not only the technology, I used a JRT-Laser sensor combined with Wemos-Pro and Domoticz (of course), but also simply the way I did this might be interesting for other purposes too.
Recently a friend came over who asked : "could this also detect a door being opened 30m away from my house without any electrics going up there?" and I guess it could. And even it might be cheaper than running a cable trough the ground or wifi/solar solutions!

This is how the sensor looks in Domoticz:

Sensor in Domoticz

putwater-sensor-domoticz.JPG (14.84 KiB) Viewed 1659 times

The JRT-Laser scanner itself no bigger than a matchbox :

JRT-Laser distance sensor

JRT laser distance sensor MB2D43.JPG (39.51 KiB) Viewed 1659 times

Self-compiled and script-running Tasmota on Wemos-pro :

In order to process hex-strings, tasmota scripting

Wemos D1 with selfcompiled Tasmota.JPG (42.54 KiB) Viewed 1659 times

Anyways, hope you like the link to this topic on my channel.



For any forum moderator;
sorry if I am not posting this in the right category, please displace it elsewhere if necessary.

[ErnieFR]

sorry, for one reason or another I could not add the final and most important image ; the long-term result

measurements so far

domoticz results.JPG (135.31 KiB) Viewed 1653 times

As you can see recent months I've had some trouble with the old water pump emptying the well by accident, since its replacement measurements have gotten somewhat disturbed. It all needs so much time...

[waltervl]

Thanks. The topic should be in the Show your Projects section I suppose, MySensors is a specific protocol (https://www.mysensors.org/) But that is something for a Moderator.

I am missing how you integrated your laser sensor into Domoticz. What protocol did you use? Tasmota sending API calls to Virtual Sensor device or MQTT Autodiscover or something else?
What changes or configuration did you make to tasmota to get the laser sensor supported.
Do you have a link to a shop where you can buy this sensor, Ali, Ebay?

[ErnieFR]

Sorry I did not know about 'mysensors', I interpreted that as 'my sensors' Hopefully a moderator can help to displace the topic.

The sensor can be bought at lots of places, just google "jrt laser"
The wemos running Tasmota sends simple mqtt messages from the script. That is why I bought the Wemos-Pro: it comes with an external wifi-antenna which I needed in an enclosed stone water well to get somewhat better connection, it has 4mb ram so more freedom to add modules like Tasmota-scripting in self-compiling Tasmota online (see tasmota docs). Configuring Domoticz is the simplest part; it is a custom sensor created on the hardware page (dummy group) and once created Domoticz gives it an index number to be used in the mqtt message :
publish domoticz/in {"idx":159,"svalue":"%var3%"}
The simple well-icon is just for fun added with https://domoticz-icon.aurelien-loyer.fr/

[ErnieFR]

For those wondering what the "good/fail" ratio figures are for : the reflection of the water differs from time to time. If the pump has not worked for hours, there are no ripples and the laser passes through the surface measuring the bottom of the well So in order to give some indication how often this happens, I started counting the mis-measurements too. This should not be seen as poor performance but for me this indicates reliability of the measured distance. I should install some kind of reflecting material that floats but also not get entangled into the wires of the pump... Working on that last issue but did not have any inspiration yet, as going down myself 18m into the well is not an option, it needs to somehow be lowered there.