I'm trying out an idea. I wanted to find a way to measure the lake level in real-time. Here's how it works. I use a range sensor, the kind that measures distance using an acoustic pulse (from Vernier). The sensor is mounted several feet above the lake and pointing down to the water surface. The range measurement to the surface tells you the lake level. I average several readings to try to smooth out the effects of waves.
The lake level is about normal level right now. Shorter readings indicate a rise in the lake level and longer readings a drop in the level. I wrote a gui in microsoft c# that takes the readings, plots a graph and sends it up to the web page server. Well, we'll see how it goes... See www.SebecLake.net for the chart.
2 comments:
Interesting project and I have a friend on a lake who is considering a lake height monitor design also. It seems the high excursions you are seeing cannot all be caused by wave action and you would expect low excursions also for that cause. Some form of electrical noise? I have an oil tank monitor working on a similar principle but not connected to my web page or home automation system.
I think you are right and the sensor I'm using is switching between meters and feet and that is the cause of the faulty readings or it could be some form of noise.
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