Saturday, November 5, 2011

Lake Sensor Project: Hardware Construction

Bare PVC Electrical Box





Drilling holes for ultrasonic distance sensor

Ultrasonic sensor, DHT22, and plug for thermistor installed:



All sensors are fixed in place and holes sealed with hot glue. The box should be essentially water tight.

Sensors wired to external daughterboard (for mounting pull up, pull down resistors for various sensors)

Daughterboard connected to XBEE shield via ribbon cables

Boards installed in box w/ self adhesive velcro. 


The hardware is essentially done. Eventually I'd like to set up a battery and solar powered system. Having an extension cord run down the hill to the dock is a little kludgy. Ideally I'd use some old RC airplane lithium polymer batteries that can't supply enough current to fly aircraft well any more, but would still work fine for this application. However, LIPO batteries need specialized charging circuitry that would require more research than I have time for right now.



2 comments:

  1. very cool Andy! But where is the camera to watch the fishies?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dang it! I knew I forgot something!

    That's actually a good idea. An underwater web cam would be awesome.

    ReplyDelete