Vibration sensors aren't really telling you what you really want to know. A current sensor on each of the pump power lines would give you better information on the status of the pumps and motors. You could tell if/when they are operating, as well as how much current they are pulling (to determine if they need maintenance, replacement, or the output pipe is clogged). A couple float switches would tell you the water level of when the pumps should be operating and when the water is about to flood the basement.
Excellent Idea Sparkfun with the sumps! We have a similar water table issue. We will likely do something similar to ensure the sumps are always running. One thing to consider (in terms of efficiency) is to make sure the sumps are clean of silt debre at the intakes, so you are not paying more for the pumps working harder. Should be yearly checked depending on iron levels in water, silt, calcium, etc. excellent video!
Lot of criticism in the comments, but I still appreciate the video. Ever since I saw one of Nick's (I think?) videos about this years and years ago, I've been idly thinking about ways to monitor sump pumps, so it's nice to see options.
And in this particular example, having ethernet+poe down in the basement would have saved a power supply and an apparently unnecessary communication bridge
You have to be very careful of any turbulence in that setup. Usually requires using at least a PVC pipe down as you will get a lot of noise and inaccurate readings.
I'm not sure what problem single pair ethernet solves in this situation regular ethernet wouldn't. If you used POE you would have battery backed power from your network/server closet. And used a small Arduino or even a PI with some sort of water level sensor in addition to your pump monitors.
So you are basically monitoring that the pump output pipes are vibrating but not really that the pumps are pumping enough to keep the sump below a critical level. It would seem to more important to monitor the level in the sump instead of the vibration of the pump output. Vibration doesn't necessarily mean pumping at a rate to keep the sump low enough. I would think that of you can't measure the actual flow rate out that a better solution would monitoring pump current draw and sump level.
Nifty and I'll read up on the single pair ethernet stuff. (curious what the distance spec. is) An alternate way of detecting water flow in the PVC might be to wrap a rigid coil around it that is part of a tuned circuit which will of course detune when there is water volume present. Of course this could have just been done with standard ethernet and worked just as well, assuming you are within 300Ft. 10bt standard ethernet also goes quite a bit further outside of spec. (reliably) than 100mbps or GBe.
I agree with you comment, and wanted to add some thoughts. In the basement, there is a power supply powering the SPE board. I thought that the idea was that you use the SPE power to power a device like that, so I think sparkfun is missing the point. I look at the points of failure, should the building power go off, I'll bet the board goes dark, and the flood happens. The value of SPE is that it's fewer wires than ethernet, and has power.
A real demo would've actually shown us how this is useful when needing to exceed the 100 meter limit of ethernet without the need to use fiber but instead we got a marketing video that just shows how much they can overcomplicate this project.
This feels like the wrong way (very naive) to monitor pumps. Volts, Amps, Flow, Pressure - with connectivity to (or outright replacement of) the control system for the pumps. Use 10base-T1L with PoDL to run the logic for the controller. A variety of sensors: float switches to "stage" the pumps (Off, On, High, Flood), hall effect current sensor for each switched circuit, voltage for the controller local AC supply, and flow and pressure sensors on the piping. AC-Rectified-MOSFET arrangement (use a full-bridge rectifier on the line side supply to convert it to DC that a MOSFET can use) to control the pumps. You can make a controller alternate starts and stops to reduce the total start cycles per pump (even better if you use 3-phase pumps and a VFD - which you can control directly via MODBUS/CAN/UART). Using the On/off float switches you maintain your normal level in the sump - if it gets to the high stage, it can kick on the other pump. If both pumps are running (verified by flow and pressure) and the flood float switch trips, you know you have a problem. Checking the current/voltage of the running pump and comparing against nominal values can indicate if the pump has failed or other problems: High current, low pressure, low flow = locked rotor Low current, high flow, low pressure = burst pipe No current, no voltage = breaker trippped (note this doesn't work if your controller gets power from the same supply as the motor)
Interesting but I don't see the purpose of using single-pair ethernet only to convert back to normal ethernet. It seems like an unnecessary conversion. Why wasn't normal ethernet used from the basement all the way up? If I were to design such a system I think I'd prefer to know when the pumps were running electrically versus by vibrations. I'm curious if an employee went to the basement and shook those pipes would you get false readings upstairs? It is interesting to see these devices really used versus the countless videos of knobs controlling LEDs on someone's table. Thanks for sharing.
Vibration sensors aren't really telling you what you really want to know. A current sensor on each of the pump power lines would give you better information on the status of the pumps and motors. You could tell if/when they are operating, as well as how much current they are pulling (to determine if they need maintenance, replacement, or the output pipe is clogged). A couple float switches would tell you the water level of when the pumps should be operating and when the water is about to flood the basement.
Excellent Idea Sparkfun with the sumps! We have a similar water table issue. We will likely do something similar to ensure the sumps are always running. One thing to consider (in terms of efficiency) is to make sure the sumps are clean of silt debre at the intakes, so you are not paying more for the pumps working harder. Should be yearly checked depending on iron levels in water, silt, calcium, etc. excellent video!
With just 6 extra wires, two power supplies, and separate I2C cables you too can have single pair ethernet
Lot of criticism in the comments, but I still appreciate the video. Ever since I saw one of Nick's (I think?) videos about this years and years ago, I've been idly thinking about ways to monitor sump pumps, so it's nice to see options.
I think it's funny that you monitor whether the pumps are running by an accelerometer, rather than just monitoring the pumps themselves.
I don’t quite understand how running single pair to the basement is any easier than normal Ethernet ?
I was thinking the same thing. Maybe there is a cost savings for long cable runs? But in this case, the run doesn't seem that long.
And in this particular example, having ethernet+poe down in the basement would have saved a power supply and an apparently unnecessary communication bridge
It's the distance, Ethernet (cat5) was about 100m where as SPE can reach about 1km at the cost of speed; only 10mbps (so I understand)
@@Rees3901Gmail Thanks, that clears it up a bit. I thought cat5 was good to 300m at 10mbps but maybe I'm wrong.
@@andrew051968 yeah, only 100m I'm afraid 🙁 I think this technology borrows some tricks from rs485 'modbus etc'
You should use a sonic distance sensor to measure water level.
You have to be very careful of any turbulence in that setup. Usually requires using at least a PVC pipe down as you will get a lot of noise and inaccurate readings.
I'm not sure what problem single pair ethernet solves in this situation regular ethernet wouldn't. If you used POE you would have battery backed power from your network/server closet. And used a small Arduino or even a PI with some sort of water level sensor in addition to your pump monitors.
over 100m i suppose
Very interesting stuff, thank for sharing!
So you are basically monitoring that the pump output pipes are vibrating but not really that the pumps are pumping enough to keep the sump below a critical level. It would seem to more important to monitor the level in the sump instead of the vibration of the pump output. Vibration doesn't necessarily mean pumping at a rate to keep the sump low enough.
I would think that of you can't measure the actual flow rate out that a better solution would monitoring pump current draw and sump level.
Nifty and I'll read up on the single pair ethernet stuff. (curious what the distance spec. is)
An alternate way of detecting water flow in the PVC might be to wrap a rigid coil around it that is part of a tuned circuit which will of course
detune when there is water volume present.
Of course this could have just been done with standard ethernet and worked just as well, assuming you are within 300Ft.
10bt standard ethernet also goes quite a bit further outside of spec. (reliably) than 100mbps or GBe.
1700 meters Oh my! :)
Why not send power down to the basement over the other Ethernet pairs.
I agree with you comment, and wanted to add some thoughts. In the basement, there is a power supply powering the SPE board. I thought that the idea was that you use the SPE power to power a device like that, so I think sparkfun is missing the point. I look at the points of failure, should the building power go off, I'll bet the board goes dark, and the flood happens. The value of SPE is that it's fewer wires than ethernet, and has power.
A real demo would've actually shown us how this is useful when needing to exceed the 100 meter limit of ethernet without the need to use fiber but instead we got a marketing video that just shows how much they can overcomplicate this project.
Oh how unexpected, a marketing video from a company that sells things. Who'da thunk it?
This feels like the wrong way (very naive) to monitor pumps. Volts, Amps, Flow, Pressure - with connectivity to (or outright replacement of) the control system for the pumps.
Use 10base-T1L with PoDL to run the logic for the controller. A variety of sensors: float switches to "stage" the pumps (Off, On, High, Flood), hall effect current sensor for each switched circuit, voltage for the controller local AC supply, and flow and pressure sensors on the piping. AC-Rectified-MOSFET arrangement (use a full-bridge rectifier on the line side supply to convert it to DC that a MOSFET can use) to control the pumps.
You can make a controller alternate starts and stops to reduce the total start cycles per pump (even better if you use 3-phase pumps and a VFD - which you can control directly via MODBUS/CAN/UART). Using the On/off float switches you maintain your normal level in the sump - if it gets to the high stage, it can kick on the other pump. If both pumps are running (verified by flow and pressure) and the flood float switch trips, you know you have a problem.
Checking the current/voltage of the running pump and comparing against nominal values can indicate if the pump has failed or other problems:
High current, low pressure, low flow = locked rotor
Low current, high flow, low pressure = burst pipe
No current, no voltage = breaker trippped (note this doesn't work if your controller gets power from the same supply as the motor)
Interesting but I don't see the purpose of using single-pair ethernet only to convert back to normal ethernet. It seems like an unnecessary conversion. Why wasn't normal ethernet used from the basement all the way up? If I were to design such a system I think I'd prefer to know when the pumps were running electrically versus by vibrations. I'm curious if an employee went to the basement and shook those pipes would you get false readings upstairs? It is interesting to see these devices really used versus the countless videos of knobs controlling LEDs on someone's table. Thanks for sharing.
sound is awfull