Monitoring of Lake Water level possible?

I am wondering about the Snow death measuring thread. would that work on Water?

Brad

Just looking around your site, looks like your ready for wx data :slight_smile:

Question, where in the world is Sunrise Lake? I couldn’t find anything on your site that would tell me where your located…

Yeah, I’m ready :slight_smile:
Cranked the nearby airport METAR into WD to get a feel for it.

Sunrise Lake is in the Brookswood area of Langley, BC., about 30 miles east of Vancouver.
It’s actually a gravel pit that was developed years ago and is filled with normal ground-water. Hence the up/down with heavy rains, spring/summer variations etc. And since it’s not a public waterway it’s only known by name to the locals.

The site is still a work-in-progress.

Actually the ultrasonic approach should work better with water than it does with snow. Snow works fine except when it is very dry and fluffy. The ultrasonic approach isn’t cheap, but using the sensor described in the following link might be a cheaper alternative.

http://www.parallax.com/dl/docs/prod/audiovis/Distance28015.pdf

All my experimentation has been with the Senscorp sensors which cost about $75 plus some kind of an interface board for 1-wire readings. A relatively cheap approach to the interface board is the HobbyBoards solar sensor and feed the output of the ultrasonic sensor to the Vad pin of the DS2438 chip.

Interesting project, but I don’t have any close by ponds or streams.

:smiley:

Cheers

MikeyM

A similar thread available here that contains some good ideas…

Thanks MickeyM.

Would the ‘ping’ have to be sent vertical, I.e. straight down? If yes, that would eliminate ultrasonic for me as the sensor would have to be on shore so as to be in a constant fixed position. Or do I have the concept wrong? Would the ping get returned by the water surface or the lake bottom? Perhaps a little robot rowboat once a day to a constant spot?

I’ve run across some sensors bases on pressure, which would work great but are outside the budget. A couple of hundred I can sneak by. Much more than that would probably get noticed and may effect my quality of life around the house :slight_smile:

So much more stuff to learn :slight_smile:

I think I found the answer to my (now dumb sounding) questions thanks to following NorCal Dan’s link. Looks like ultrasonic would have to sit above the water via an arm of sorts to measure distance to surface. Looks like I’m stuck with something based of pressure.

That’s why I suggested on a dock, but later I thought of floating docks and of course that wouldn’t work #-o

Not going to throw out the ultrasonic altogether though. May just have to adjust some thinking. Water level becomes more important, or rather more of interest, once it reaches the bottom of our retaining wall. I may consider an ‘arm’ to swing out/extend at that time and measure from that point on. Not quite as useful as monitoring water lever all year long but perhaps a good start.

Could you sneak a wire down into the water, to something on the bottom? If so a pressure sensor would be a good water depth indicator.

That’s now my plan B. No problem to sneak/snake a pressure sensor to a spot that is covered all year. Now to find a sensor within the budget :slight_smile:

Another way is by using piece of PVC drainage pipe, a ping pong ball and an IR range detector. If interested, I’ll find the link that explain it in detail.

Ed

I found that one too. Not applicable for me as you have to work with a known level, I.e. the top end of the PVC has to stick out of the water and when water is low there would be a big pipe sticking out. (The distance between floating pin pong ball and top is measured).

Thank you very much for the thought.

What resolution are you looking for with this project? I still think a pipe is the easiest solution to get accurate measurements. Otherwise the waves will affect the reading. The submerged pressure sounds interesting and expensive. I never got around to making a sensor for my pond and we have sold the house. Don’t need one in the RV :slight_smile:

Accurate black water sensor?

Well, last year I used chunk of pipe that was marked at 6 in. interval :slight_smile:

By inch would be great. You’re right re pressure = expensive. Pipe no good as we have too much fluctuation. In late summer I’d have 10 feet+ of pipe sticking out of the water. If I don’t make any headway I’m going to monitor how far the water goes down from our retaining wall. I could probably build a 10 foot or so ‘extension’ and then use a ‘water is lower than reference point’ and ‘water is 6 inches above reference’ etc. As I write this I might be talking myself into this scheme as a starting point. Of course a pipe sticking up 10 feet away from the wall would be about same as 10 feet of extension in the air. Hmmmmm. Have to see which would be easier to build. But first we install the Davis. The big brown truck came today.

I was thinking you would lay the pipe in from shore rather than vertical from a pier or similar. Calibration would be the hard part…

I believe the RV already has ultrasonic sensors in the tanks to measure the level. They seem pretty accurate.

Hmmm, I think I see what you mean. Good idea, but I wonder how the ping-pong ball would do traveling on a slanted pipe re reliability or not getting stuck. Would certainly look less obtrusive that a right angle rig.

Might be worth a try though and if worse comes to worse I might have to go vertical. Guess I better dig into the electronics some.

Maybe some type of moisture sensor would work better…ie. no moving parts…wire them in series and use resistance measurement. Just thinking out loud…

How clean is the water? I just had this vision of everything inside the pipe covered with green junk… #-o

Almost drinking quality but you’re right. Could still be a problem as there are times of the year I do get stuff catching on dock lines, etc. – taking that into account looks like ultrasonic or pressure are the only real feasible options and cost kinda eliminates pressure.

BTW, thanks for bouncing this stuff around with me.

http://www.howmuchsnow.com/ping/

So far the cheapest setup I have seen…