The ability to monitor water tank levels from a remote location
can be very useful in certain circumstances. This particularly applies if you
have several water tanks or if the tanks are hard to access, or you want to
include automatic pump control.
This Base Station is intended for use with the telemetry
version of the Water Tank Level Meter described in the November & December
2007 issues of SILICON CHIP. It has an inbuilt 433MHz
wireless receiver and can handle data transmissions from up to 10 level meters
and display the results on a 2-line 32-character LCD module. In bargraph mode,
it can show up to 10 tank levels simultaneously, while the digital readout mode
shows individual tank levels to 1%.
As shown, the Base Station is a compact unit that can be placed
on a shelf or a desk or attached to a wall via integral mounting brackets. The
display is backlit so that it can be readily seen under all lighting
conditions.
The only controls are four pushbutton switches situated in a
line immediately below the LCD module. These are used to control the display
format and to set up pump control. Power for the Base Station comes from a 9V DC
200mA plugpack.
