Seneye leak detector

Seabed · Jan 28, 2020

I currently run a seneye on my reef and I particularly like that it texts me if I have a heater malfunction.
However I recently had a return pump failure when I was out of the house and my seneye didn’t pick it up as it’s in the sump with my heaters so the temperature didn’t drop, but the tank wasn’t getting any heat.
I don’t want to move the seneye to the main tank as I use the out of water alert feature to let me know if my RO has run out and the water level is dropping in my pump chamber.
I've recently seen the seneye leak detector for sale and wondered if I could stick it in the sump above the water line so that if the pump failed the water would rise, trigger the leak detector and send me a text.
Has anyone tried this before? Has anyone any experience with the seneye leak detector and know if the sensitivity would be suitable? Ideally I would like to cut off the leak detector and fit a float switch but not sure if this would work as there are three wires coming out if the seneye to the detector and am not sure why.
If anyone has any insight or advice, it would be appreciated.

reef lover · Feb 3, 2020

Bump!

robbyg · Feb 3, 2020

Yes it absolutely can be done but it depends on your skill level when dealing with electronics.

First of all you cannot use the leak detector as is, for a level sensor. Once these things get wet they will stay activatively giving off an alarm for as long as it takes all the water to dry out between the contacts. On my Leak detectors this can be an hour or more if I dont go down and manualy wipe them off with a paper towel.

So you are going to have to go the float level path and ditch the water sensor plate.
The reason there are three wires is that you have a Transistor like an NPN transistor or more likely a FET in that sensor. The "Base" or "Gate of the semiconductor is attached to one side of the conducting traces on the leak sensor and the other side of the leak sensors traces is connected back up to the controller to a power source like maybe 5Vdc. When the Leak sensor traces get wet they bridge together and allow the 5Vdc to pass to the Base or Gate of the Transistor at a very low current, but enough to the collector to emitter pins or in the case of a FET the "Source" to "Drain" pins close like a relay.

The basic idea here is that you need to open the leak detector and remove the two wires that go to the two different sensor traces (The +5V and the return trace) and basically put each wire to one of the two wires on a mechanical float switch. There is going to be a resistor in the line and that needs to be preserved as well as you might need to add a second resistor onto the "Base" or "Gate" line to simulate the resistance of the saltwater. This would be a high value resistor but it would be needed.

Without seeing the inside of the device it's pretty hard to provide further info. I just wanted to give you an idea of what you are working with and what needs to be done.

Seabed · Feb 3, 2020

Thanks for the reply.
I am definitely competent when it comes to soldering/wiring etc, as long as I know what to put where and what needs connecting to what, what to buy etc, I can follow a circuit diagram.
Do you recommend I buy the leak detector and float switch then take it apart and share what’s inside to see if we can figure it out together.

robbyg · Feb 3, 2020

Seabed said:
Thanks for the reply.
I am definitely competent when it comes to soldering/wiring etc, as long as I know what to put where and what needs connecting to what, what to buy etc, I can follow a circuit diagram.
Do you recommend I buy the leak detector and float switch then take it apart and share what’s inside to see if we can figure it out together.

Yeah no problem. I assume you have an Ohm meter so that you can figure out what is going on. I just looked up the resistance of salt water and it's a lot lower than I though. It clocks in at about .2 Ohms. So I don't think you will need an extra resistor.