Welcome to EnviroDIY, a community for do-it-yourself environmental science and monitoring. EnviroDIY is part of 
@colemanjj
Active 4 years, 9 months ago-
colemanjj replied to the topic Water Monitoring from a Drone in the forum Infrastructure and Equipment 4 years, 9 months ago
Thanks for asking,
After trying several simpler WiFi and cellular boards with only moderate success for about a year, I moved over to the Particle platform. With generic ESP8266, adafruit feathers and FONO-feathers I found it hard to get things working dependably. I found cellular communication particularly difficult. I still use some of the o…[Read more]
-
colemanjj started the topic Water Monitoring from a Drone in the forum Infrastructure and Equipment 4 years, 9 months ago
I recently pasted a Particle Electron based water sensor on the back of a drone that enabled the testing of water temperature and Specific Conductance from the air. See: https://github.com/colemanjj/Spudnik-07/blob/Drone/README.md
The drone based sensors are a reduced set of sensors that were implemented for our “Spudnik” unit and described at:…[Read more]
-
colemanjj replied to the topic Water Monitoring in remote locations with a solar Particle Electron in the forum Environmental Sensors 5 years, 11 months ago
neilh,
The TDS code currently posted by DFROBOT for the Gravity: Analog TDS Sensor/Meter for Arduino is a total re-write since I downloaded it. The code I downloaded about 6 months ago had an error in it (applied temperature correction to the raw analog voltage) The updated code is much more modular (a bunch of functions) and seems to have the…[Read more] -
colemanjj started the topic Water Monitoring in remote locations with a solar Particle Electron in the forum Environmental Sensors 5 years, 11 months ago
The Spudnik project is designed to monitor water quality and other environmental parameters in remote locations, report over the cell network and post the monitoring data to Ubidots and the Particle console.
The project is described, hardware identified, and the code posted at:
https://github.com/colemanjj/Spudnik-07The initial deployment of…[Read more]
-
colemanjj posted a new activity comment 5 years, 12 months ago
neilh, Thanks for your thoughts on this.
I’m looking at small rivers and streams. So depth change is generally less than 10 feet, in most cases max change of 1-5 feet. I’d like to get less than 0.1% accuracy and +_ 0.1 inch but I could live with as much as +_ 0.5 inch if I had to.
I’ve been running the BME280 in the mineral oil for about 8 weeks…[Read more] -
colemanjj posted a new activity comment 6 years ago
I’ve got the calibration OK and I’m using another BME280 for atmospheric compensation. Both BME280s use I2C.
What I’m unsure of is submersing the BME280 in mineral oil. It seems to work but I haven’t heard of anyone putting the BME280 in mineral oil, or any pressure sensor in mineral oil for that matter, to isolate it from the water. Any…[Read more]-
BME280 – I don’t know. Its a materials/chemistry issue – how does mineral oil react with the materials in the sensor. Probably easy to test – but how to do longer term reliability testing.
Years ago, a Motorola/Freescale product “Pressure sensor” engineer suggested I use a high molecular silica gel for interfacing to its air sensor diaphgram.…[Read more]-
neilh, Thanks for your thoughts on this.
I’m looking at small rivers and streams. So depth change is generally less than 10 feet, in most cases max change of 1-5 feet. I’d like to get less than 0.1% accuracy and +_ 0.1 inch but I could live with as much as +_ 0.5 inch if I had to.
I’ve been running the BME280 in the mineral oil for about 8 weeks…[Read more]-
that sounds pretty fantastic. Of course doesn’t indicate long term reliability and the issues are mechanically how to connect the water pressure with the mineral oil. I’d be interested in how you are thinking about doing it in a steam with the logger connection is say 20′ above the point of measurement. But its giving me someother ideas. I’m…[Read more]
-
-
-
-
colemanjj posted an update 6 years ago
@neilh20,
I’m interested in your mention of working on a ” Water Depth probe using gas sensor”. I’ve been testing a water depth probe made with a atmospheric pressure sensor (BME280) in mineral oil and encapsulated in a section of PVC with a flexible diaphragm at one end. It seems to be working but I need to calibrate etc. I haven’t seen this…[Read more]-
Hi John – feel free to email me direct on neilh at biomonitors.com as I get it quicker.
comments: generally pressure sensors are pretty easy to understand and calibrate for a water column – but the devils in the detail. What range (eg 0-10′) and accuracy do you want.
1) for the BME280 it hasn’t got an easy mechanical port to isolate the pressure…[Read more]-
I’ve got the calibration OK and I’m using another BME280 for atmospheric compensation. Both BME280s use I2C.
What I’m unsure of is submersing the BME280 in mineral oil. It seems to work but I haven’t heard of anyone putting the BME280 in mineral oil, or any pressure sensor in mineral oil for that matter, to isolate it from the water. Any…[Read more]-
BME280 – I don’t know. Its a materials/chemistry issue – how does mineral oil react with the materials in the sensor. Probably easy to test – but how to do longer term reliability testing.
Years ago, a Motorola/Freescale product “Pressure sensor” engineer suggested I use a high molecular silica gel for interfacing to its air sensor diaphgram.…[Read more]-
neilh, Thanks for your thoughts on this.
I’m looking at small rivers and streams. So depth change is generally less than 10 feet, in most cases max change of 1-5 feet. I’d like to get less than 0.1% accuracy and +_ 0.1 inch but I could live with as much as +_ 0.5 inch if I had to.
I’ve been running the BME280 in the mineral oil for about 8 weeks…[Read more]-
that sounds pretty fantastic. Of course doesn’t indicate long term reliability and the issues are mechanically how to connect the water pressure with the mineral oil. I’d be interested in how you are thinking about doing it in a steam with the logger connection is say 20′ above the point of measurement. But its giving me someother ideas. I’m…[Read more]
-
-
-
-
-
-
colemanjj became a registered member 6 years ago
that sounds pretty fantastic. Of course doesn’t indicate long term reliability and the issues are mechanically how to connect the water pressure with the mineral oil. I’d be interested in how you are thinking about doing it in a steam with the logger connection is say 20′ above the point of measurement. But its giving me someother ideas. I’m…[Read more]