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Highwater indicator and battery monitor.
#1
I am looking for some advice on how to add a highwater alarm and battery monitor for my battery bank with a solar panel.

For the high water alarm I have a float switch that I can use. Is there a 12 volt step down to a voltage I can wire right to a pin. Then when there is voltage at the pen I can set an audible and text action?

The battery monitor I have thought about a few different ideas but am open to suggestion. At this point I am thinking of measuring overall voltage and flow in and out by using a shunt on the negative side. Maybe with some sort of arduino set up. Any ideas?


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#2
Hi festeraeb,

i made a voltage and current monitor based on a Microchip PAC1710 some years ago.

I used the Bluegiga BLE113 module running a basic script every second. It measures the
current with 1 mA accuracy and sums up the battery capacity.

The voltage measurement is laser trimmed inside the chip. Accuracy 10mV and 0.15 % typically.
Voltage range is 0 to 40 V. Current range is 10 A continously, 20 A peak.

My basic script keeps the actual capacity and saves it to a ring buffer every day. So you
can review the last 14 days. The advantage is that the BT module draws less than 1 mA from the
battery and is summing up the current every second. So you can keep it running all the time.

I have set up node red to receive the BT advertisement messages. It should not be a problem
to change the basic script to send out the data using advertisement. So you don´t need a
connection between the module and the Raspberry.

I need to grab a little but I guess I have some pcbs left.

Chris


Attached Files Image(s)
   
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#3
if your float switch is connected to the bilge pump 12v i would not use it, get another one they are cheap under $2.
wiring a switch
https://sailoog.gitbooks.io/openplotter-...nsors.html

[Image: side-mounted-float-switch-water-level-sw...sensor.jpg]
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#4
Hello festeraeb,
I think Jim's tip is right.
You can do that well with such a float switch. You can then trigger what you want with the actions (message, email, LED, sound.....)
You can solve the battery monitoring with an INA219.
You can do everything inside OP or you can do it via node-red.
Search in already written articles. If you still have questions, there are people here who will try to help you.
Greetings Jürgen
Angel  Entschuldigung für mein Englisch. Es ist "deepl.com english"
PN bitte auf german.  Big Grin
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#5
That makes sense. I didn’t even think about powering it off the pi. It is an old switch I had on a different pump that broke. Hence the wanting to have a high water monitor. If I under stand correctly I would wire it to a ground pin and a 3.3 v pin and when the switch turns on I can then do what ever I want with that trigger through either open plotter or signal k.

I will look into the chip and do a search and get back if I have any questions.


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#6
But be careful,

In the tab "actions" OP 1.2.0 does not seem to work completely.

E.g. no messages appear due to a trigger.
Angel  Entschuldigung für mein Englisch. Es ist "deepl.com english"
PN bitte auf german.  Big Grin
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#7
Luckbert

The ina219 chip looks good but it tops out at 3-4 amps. My battery charger and generator ( from the engine) are more amps than that I believe. Will it just not be accurate or will it overload that board.


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#8
NO NO NO a gpio to gnd do not ground a power pin..
in v 2.x.x the actions will be in node red.
when you create an action in openplotter it puts the proper nodes on this page of NR

   
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#9
(2019-04-28, 10:49 AM)festeraeb Wrote: The ina219 chip looks good but it tops out at 3-4 amps. My battery charger and generator ( from the engine) are more amps than that I believe. Will it just not be accurate or will it overload that board.

The INA needs to have a bigger shunt to measure higher currents, mine is piggy backed across a battery monitor shunt, 

http://forum.openmarine.net/showthread.php?tid=1448

You can make the wiring much easier with a PCB, first time order these guys will send 10 boards in a few days for the cost of a couple of beers >
https://easyeda.com/editor#id=|1b1c30d88...06446aec1b

Then add an ESP32 ads1115, ina219 and bme280 for accurate barometer, voltage and current sent to Openplotter over wifi

Ongoing code here (bit messy and work in progress)
https://github.com/boatybits/DATA_SENDER
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#10
Chris. Your response just came up. I will look at the chip set you suggest. Thanks.


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Paddyb thanks I will look at those tomorrow. I appreciate the idea. I am new to working on things like this. It’s been a log time since I have done more than repair pieces on a board.

Jim. Of course a gpio pin and ground. Thanks for reminding me.


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