2023-12-08, 01:51 AM
(2023-12-07, 02:45 PM)dwynalda Wrote: I am looking to do the same thing you seem to have done here but am admittedly a sensESP newbie. I've done a few arduino monitoring projects in the past and I have managed to get sensESP working doing digital and analog input (the examples).
My question is this. How does the tankedge sensor work for you? I want to tape one to my fresh water tank and then measure the water level in my boat tank using this. What type of range did you get from the device? I'm assuming since you feed it 12V and step it down with a divider (something I think I have the equipment to do), you're measuring the voltage it passes. What type of voltage range did you find and how did it vary based on tank level?
Before I go and buy a sensor I'd like to make sure this will do what I'd like it to do. Eventually I'd like to feed this reading to SignalK so I can find my tank level from any browser...
Also - have you considered/done this with a WASTE tank? Is the resistance similar and does sludge that sticks to the tank sides affect the readings through the plastic tank?
In the end I'm sick of climbing in my bilge to see if I have fresh water to make it through another day -- and waste levels low enough I'm not in danger of a mess... I've got esp32 wrooms, I've connected them to signalK. My questions are more about this specific sensor and it's integration and what range of voltage you got in your example. (Plus, has it worked for two years now that you've got this installed?)
This worked well. You are correct that I fed the tankedge sensor 12 volt and got a reading through a voltage divider into SensESP. However, I got a digital value (0-1024), not a voltage. And I didn't bother converting it to anything else. The value was enough for the code to work. I just needed to read a "low" value and a "high" value. My low was something like "46" and my high was like "823." I plugged those two values into the code and SensESP did the rest, ultimately returning a ratio to the SignalK path tanks.blackwater.0.currentLevel.
I did this on my holding tank and it worked great. I could tell when sludge would "settle out" on the bottom. After a pump out, I wouldn't be at 0%, so I would know I needed to take extra steps to clean tank. Sure is nice to know when you are getting close to full. I used SignalK Zones to set up alarms letting me know when it was time to head over to the pump our, rather than wait for the Raritan sensor light to come on and shut off the toilet.
Unfortunately, I sold that boat, but will be doing something similar to whatever next boat I get next year. I have the visual studio code on an old boat computer. I'll see if I can find it and I'll post it here.