Optical Liquid Sensor

[Bengals888]

Hi,

Has anyone used one or built one up for ATO?

I have seen circuit that uses transistor to relay, another used FET to accomplish same switching.
There is one that uses op amp.

Does the simple circuit work pretty well or do you have a more fine tuned circuit that works
reliably?

 

[Ranjib]

we use this in reef-pi heavily. Generally I recommend the pre-made board from dfrobot, which is openhardware, you can see the schematics here:
https://www.dfrobot.com/wiki/index.php/Liquid_Level_Sensor-FS-IR02_SKU:_SEN0205
https://github.com/Arduinolibrary/D...ster/SEN0205 Liquid Level Sensor-FS-IR02.pdf

 

[Bengals888]

we use this in reef-pi heavily. Generally I recommend the pre-made board from dfrobot, which is openhardware, you can see the schematics here:
https://www.dfrobot.com/wiki/index.php/Liquid_Level_Sensor-FS-IR02_SKU:_SEN0205
https://github.com/Arduinolibrary/DFRobot_Liquid_Level_Sensor_FS_IR02/raw/master/SEN0205 Liquid Level Sensor-FS-IR02.pdf

I tried with 12V supply, 1K on emitter and 12K on receiver. Didn’t work too well. I’m sure that board works great at a cost.

Do you like this optical ones vs. the float switch? I know both have good and bad.

 

[Metasyntactic]

Have anyone tried non-contact conductive sensors like this?
https://www.robotshop.com/en/gravity-non-contact-liquid-level-sensor.html

I was considering picking one up to mount on my skimmer cup. From what I've ready, they work fairly well as long as they aren't mounted on a conductive surface.

 

[Ranjib]

I tried with 12V supply, 1K on emitter and 12K on receiver. Didn’t work too well. I’m sure that board works great at a cost.

Do you like this optical ones vs. the float switch? I know both have good and bad.

This is recommended to be used with 5V. I prefer optical switch as they are not susceptible to getting clogged by salt creep or similar mechanical issues. But its also not a big deal, float switches are very effective as well. I have nano and pico tanks, and the optical sensors are relatively easy to mount

 

[Bengals888]

This is recommended to be used with 5V. I prefer optical switch as they are not susceptible to getting clogged by salt creep or similar mechanical issues. But its also not a big deal, float switches are very effective as well. I have nano and pico tanks, and the optical sensors are relatively easy to mount

I scaled up the resistor values for 12V.
I will try again with 5volt and default values.

Might be faulty sensor, bought from ebay.

 

[Bengals888]

Have anyone tried non-contact conductive sensors like this?
https://www.robotshop.com/en/gravity-non-contact-liquid-level-sensor.html

I was considering picking one up to mount on my skimmer cup. From what I've ready, they work fairly well as long as they aren't mounted on a conductive surface.

Worth a try, not sure how you would mount it?