Final Project
My final project consists on manufacturing a residential water leak detector. This idea is presented taking into account the waste of this resource due to failure of sanitary installations, connection pipes or simply due to a poorly closed water pipe. Until now, the design includes a water tank that would continuously recirculated the water thanks to a small submersible electric pump. There will be a water pipe that simulates the main network from which a facility is supplied (like a house or a building) and another small parallel network that will work only in the early morning hours.
In addition, it is contemplated to use 2 solenoid valves that will allow the gates to be closed or opened in the time range of 2 to 3am. During this period of time, the first valve will close and the second will open so that the liquid enters through the parallel network and passes through a highly precise hall-type flow sensor. After this hour, the valves are reversed, opening the first and closing the second, so that the water flows in its normal network.
The idea of operating the flow sensor only from 2 to 3am is proposed because during that time there is no regular water consumption, and what the sensor senses will correspond to a liquid leak. In addition, operating the sensor for one hour prolongs its useful life. The cost of implementing this system in a home network is around $100. In the next weeks, I will detail the materials I will need, calculating the exact cost. Finally, I will work with Iot by sending the information of the sensor to the cloud and creating alarms indicating if there is a water leak in a residence.
This is a gantt chart indicating all the steps of my final project.
The list of materials are the following:
- 1 electropump (it must drive a low flow rate, this will simulate a water leak).
- 2 solenoid valves.
- 3 MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) min 1.5A. With this I will be able to regulate the water flow with PWM and the opening or closing pulse of the valves.
- 1 hall type flow sensor.
- 1 LED screen to show the flow variable.
- 5 linear meters of 1/2" transparent hoses.
- 6 1/2" hose to device adapters (will be tested by printing them and checking for leaks at the connections).
- 1 Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32C3 IoT mini development board.
- 0.25 square meters of acrylic to make the tank.
-Copper clad laminates for the manufacture of electronic boards.
Continuing with the progress of the project, I have managed to design, manufacture and program a first version of the board by testing the components necessary for the final design. I already managed to obtain all the necessary components, and the final design of the board and its subsequent manufacturing and programming would be missing.
The processor I am using is a seeeduino ESP32-C3 that will allow me to use IoT to connect to a Wi-Fi signal and send my sensed variables to create alarms.
For this first stage, I have managed to make the electric pump work and regulate the flow delivered, simulating a water leak. Likewise, I have managed to read the readings of a flow sensor and send them to the Arduino IDE serial monitor.
However, I will need to make another board where I can also control the opening and closing of the solenoid valves. For this, I will add 2 more MOSFETs to the analog pins of the seeeduino ESP32C-2. The video below shows the correct operation using the MOSFET of the current board.
I will also add a voltage regulator from my supply that is 12 volts to 5 volts for the seeeduino, since it will not be connected to the computer when it is running and therefore will not be energized.
The flow sensor that I am using at the moment does not have the minimum sensitivity that I need, so I have purchased another much more sensitive sensor that allows me to measure 5 liters/hour or 0.08 liters/minute according to its datasheet. With this sensor, I will be able to take lower flow readings that simulate a water leak in a residence.
