Capacitive Rain Sensor & Hydreon IR Rain Sensors
ESP32 mySQM+ Sky-Meter/Weather Station with loads of features
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I've never liked the idea of resistive rain sensors, the idea of exposed PCB traces just doesn't seem right to me. so I am wondering if there is any possibility of the mySQM+ supporting any alternative rain detection systems?
In the past I prototyped a cloud and weather sensor, which used an AD7746 capacitance sensor IC linked to a sensing PCB located behind the plastic lid of the enclosure, with this i was able to detect individual rain drops whilst using the demo code for the sensor, unfortunately coding is not my strong point and I gave up when it came to interpreting the sensor values and turning them in to something useful. The project got shelved for several years until recently I discovered this project.
Since the days of the prototype there have been a few products that i have seen on the market that i think would make good alternatives to both the AD7746 or the resistive type sensor; One of these is a capacitive sensing PCB that has a built in heater and NTC temp sensor and is priced at a very reasonable 7 euros
https://www.radiomodules.eu/en/component/62/capacitive-rain-sensor
The other options are the Hydreon IR rain sensors, available in a few different output types, these are a more expensive option but as they are used in industrial applications they should be very reliable.
https://rainsensors.com
Hi Ryan
Yes, am aware of both sensors.
The capative one we looked at, but was not followed up with. In discussions to procure some, they wanted a minimum order purchase of 5 items so it was just not worth it. It might have been 10 items from memory, but either way it was not a path that could be taken.
The R11 we have looked at before, but the price is just out of reach for most hobbists.
Regards
Robert
Thanks Robert for the reply. Things may have changed since the discussions as now there are no minimum order quantities for the capacitive sensor, which would put it well in the affordable price range, shipping from EU to the UK is now expensive but it is on a par with any other supplier in the EU ands that is simply one of the costs of Brexit that the UK now have to deal with.
I agree that the Hydreon sensors are not cheap, but then nor are telescopes, mounts or astro cameras, most people I know would rather buy a more reliable rain sensor than risk damage to the thousands of £/$ worth of equipment in their observatories, for example there are 3 members of my local Astronomical Society who have recently built observatories and we have all been discussing rain/cloud sensing, Two of those people have already purchased one of the Hydreon sensors and have them wired directly to the shutter control to close the shutter in case of rain.
By supporting these sensors you are not forcing the hand of anyone who wishes to build on a budget they can choose a cheaper sensor if they wish, Supporting a wider range of sensors will only improve your project and make it suitable to a wider range of users.
Hi Ryan
Adding the code is the easy part, I have looked at the Hydreon interface code before about a year ago. but I am not in a position now (recently retired) to purchase sensors etc like I used to do a couple of years back.
I do think you will find that there is probably not a lot of other DIY projects like this that actually support the wide range of sensors etc that this project does, including having its own remote daughter board for attaching more sensors, and comes with all the sample code to interface all of this using multiple protocols (espnow, json, web. mqtt etc). adding support for lightning, uv, camera shutter control etc.
During the 2 years of development etc spent on this project, a lot of sensors have been tried, tested and discarded over that time.
regards
Robert
Thanks again for the reply Robert.
I understand that purchasing loads of different sensors can be expensive and not everyone is in the position to do so, If you are happy for me to do so I may ask a friend who is more experienced with C++ than I am to take a look to see if he can add to the code to allow support of the capacitive sensor, of course if it proves successful I would be happy for it to be added in to the normal distribution.
I am very impressed by this (and your other projects such as the MFP2) the range of configurability is far beyond nearly any other similar project I have seen and I am grateful for all of the work you have put in to this.
I have good experience with this isolated humidity sensor: https://www.reichelt.de/entwicklerboards-feuchtesensor-bodenfeuchte--debo-cap-sens-p223620.html?&trstct=pos_1&nbc=1
Additionally I insulated the sensor with a heat shrink tube. So there is no contact with water/humidity to metal. The sensor I used before which had contact with rain water doesn't survive a week. However I used these sensors in a different project.
The Capacitive sensor above has a solder mask over the entire capacitive sensor area, and if that isn't considered weather proof enough it could easily be coated with a layer of lacquer or sealant so water ingress or corrosion shouldn't be an issue, I also intend to pot the connection points in epoxy to ensure that they stay dry (even though they are on the other side of the board)