If you have a free serial port open, you could wire up an open/close switch to one of the handshaking lines to easily detect a water level over a certain point. The open close switch could be some kind of floater like the way sump pumps activate. Mike Leo wrote:
no doubt i have some sump pump work ahead of me as well.
it wasn't actually the pump that failed, but the hole, but that is another story.
NOT having water in the basement is MUCH MUCH better than having water but getting paged because of it...but even with 2 sump pumps, a mule and sand bags, I would rather know when they all failed and be notified, than not.
This seems like a $4 dollar solution...plus an excellent opportunity to learn something new...besides how to make a hole in concrete 6 inches wider!
--- Marc Hughes <marc.hughes@gmail.com> wrote:
I hate being the practical one, but take the time & money you'd spend on that project and install a backup sump pump. You'll be far happier with a dry basement than knowing you have a wet one.
-Marc
NOTE: Cut and pasted from a web post of mine...i just didn't want to re-write it...
Since my arc isn't built yet, and we have recieved 27 feet of rain here in New England in the
On 5/15/06, Mike Leo <mleo963@yahoo.com> wrote: past
7 days, my basement flooded again.
The pump went out sometime overnight and i had 3-4 inches of water in my basement/computer room this morning.
I am smart enough, however, to have everything up off the floor (except my sun workstation!), so nothing was damaged but the carpet.
So i was thinking today, why not put an H2O sensor in and have one of the dozen or so computers page/email me when there is water present?
But......I am not a programmer, nor do I have any idea how to interface software with a hardware sensor (that I can't actually find at present on the web).
So the quetion is, where do I begin?
A quick google search finds alarm sensors, but no interface to a computer serial port...they just start screaming if they get wet.
Even if i did find one, where do I start with such a thing, to interface with an OS to trigger an action?
Does someone know of a (cheap) product to do this?
Not only does is seem like a practical project for the house, I'm sure it will be a good learning experiance as well.
Thanks for any advise...I'll be out collecting animals _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
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