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bobke avatar image
bobke asked

Any solution for water leakage in a boat?

On board of my sailboat I use a Ruuvi sensor resulting in the capability to remote watch temperature and relative humidity by the use of VRM and the Venus software on an RPI. It works great
I installed a bilge pump with an automatic switch to pump out water in case of leakage. But the switch on the pump reacts only when there is a respectable water level (10 to 15 cm). I wonder if somebody already realized a connection with a more sensible leakage sensor, so I can watch if some small leakage has happened. And a kind of alarm should still be more perfect!
Maybe it is easier to use the GX tank 140 to make such feature possible???

Looking forward for some reactions
Bob




Venus OS
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6 Answers
gazza avatar image
gazza answered ·

Probably a bit overkill/costly...? If you have access to the powerline to the bilge pump then I would have thought a simple float switch, water level detector or even moisture detector that controls a relay to switch sufficient current would work? Of course I am not sure of the details of the space that you are dealing with but I would probably go down that path?

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kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

Maybe try to replace the switch with one that acts earlier. Might also be possible to put a block of foam under the float so the switch moves earlier.

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bobke avatar image
bobke answered ·

@gazza

I already installed the bilge pump and it works now automatically (at a certain water level in the bilge the switch closes 2 relays (1 for positive, 1 for negative) from the permanent battery circuit connected to the battery. And when enough water is pumped out the relays open again.

@ kevgermani

thanks for suggestion for using foam on the switch. But what I like to realize if that I get a message at home or indication on VRM when the pump is activated. My boat is normally 100% dry, so when the pump is activated I think I need to go and check things on board

I could maybe find some SIM card activated switch to send me a sms message (I use one now to activate my router from time to time to send data from the RPI to VRM.But It would be much nicer to have it integrated in Venus?


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atebee avatar image atebee commented ·
I'm using Node Red on VenusOS to send SMS via BulkSMS API when the bilge alarm digital input is triggered.
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bobke avatar image
bobke answered ·

@atebee

This looks great. I hope you can give some more detailed info on this solution. I have already some experience with NodeRed but the BulkSMS API does not ring a bell to me.


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adelante avatar image
adelante answered ·

I have the same problem here. I was thinking about using one of the analog input and connect it to a small float switch. Could it work ? How should it be the contact ? normally close or open ?

Thanks for any help.

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pwfarnell avatar image pwfarnell commented ·
You use the digital input and it only needs to be a switch, no need for power. It can be either normally open or normally closed as you can invert the logic in the GX device. On mine I have a normally open float switch.
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adelante avatar image adelante pwfarnell commented ·
Thanks a lot for the informations.
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outsourcedguru avatar image
outsourcedguru answered ·

Adafruit sells a digital water sensor. You could velcro that somewhere, say, vertically at the bottom of something. It works on both 3.3V (Rasperry Pi) and 5V (Arduino, ESP32, etc). They always have good code examples over there. In fact, they have a variety of equipment within this space to include a level sensor and others.

I run a VenusOS (Raspberry Pi—based GX device) so this is more of an option if you have that.

From what I'm seeing the Cerbo GX (probably a Beaglebone card) has digital inputs. Docs I suppose you can set this as Bilge Alarm or similar.

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