Topic: Tank Level Sensor for Vantage Pro-2

[medistat]

Does anyone know of a sensor that will do this?

[johnd]

Does anyone know of a sensor that will do this?

There's no official level sensor for the VP2 range that I know of at all. If you don't already have a VP2 then you'd be better off looking at the Davis EnviroMonitor range for which level sensors definitely do exist (at a price).

That said, if you can find a suitable level sensor (eg maybe AquaPlumb from Vegetronix or eTape from milonetech.com) that can be adapted to deliver a 0-3v linear signal with depth then you could potentially interface it to one of the voltage inputs on a VP2 (eg solar or UV or soil moisture). That would potentially give you a suitable signal, but wouldn't read out directly in a suitable scale. An Envoy8X would make scaling easier - officially discontinued now but still available.

[Bushman]

Sadly, add-on sensors and pretty much any decent indoor sensor is missing from the VP line.  I would do this with a Raspberry Pi.  You could, in fact also interface the VP to this same pi using weewx.

[medistat]

"That said, if you can find a suitable level sensor (eg maybe AquaPlumb from Vegetronix or eTape from milonetech.com) that can be adapted to deliver a 0-3v linear signal with depth then you could potentially interface it to one of the voltage inputs on a VP2 (eg solar or UV or soil moisture). That would potentially give you a suitable signal, but wouldn't read out directly in a suitable scale. An Envoy8X would make scaling easier - officially discontinued now but still available."

Ah OK thanks, yes I have a VP2. At what point is the signal 0-3v linear - that bit I can do OK but is that the actual sensor input? Calibraion no issue. Am keen to use this solution as have the VP2 networked and the tank is 300m away from the main station.

[johnd]

At what point is the signal 0-3v linear - that bit I can do OK but is that the actual sensor input?

Not sure I understand the question and just to be clear I've not come across anyone who's actually done this so it's just an answer in principle. But if you take the VP2 solar input as one example then I think that 0-3v input is interpreted by the VP2 SIM board as 0-1800W/sqm (or something like that) at 1.67mV/W/sqm linearly. And it looks like eg the eTape sensor is resistive linearly with depth. So it's 'just' a question of converting the resistance seen to a voltage. But as I said above, scaling of the response is something that you'd need to address separately. I suppose it would be neat if it were a 6ft deep tank and you scaled it in mm (ie 0-1800), but I'm not sure the eTape sensor go as long/deep as that.