Watering Down..

Bored with the ice-bound weather and spending hours on the Internet, I suddenly decided it would be fun to make myself a water level meter to measure the amount of water in the fresh water tank on the boat.

We already have one on Willawaw, but it uses a small moving needle gauge like the fuel gauge on an old car.

Its very hard to gauge (no pun intended) how many days worth of water, you have left.

So, I decided to make something a bit more sophisticated. 

This is the result:

The indicator has ten yellow LED's. 

The first one indicates tank 10% full, the second 20% full and so on until the tenth one shows 100% full.

Nothing illuminates until you press the red button (to save battery power).

The green LED then lights to confirm that the battery is okay and the relevant yellow LED's show you the level.

It doesn't need an external battery supply, simplifying installation and will work for 2 years on 2 x AA cells.

The sensor is a solid state, vertical cylindrical plastic tube (no moving parts !!) and is 25mm in diameter). 

It reaches from the top of the fresh water tank to the bottom of the tank.

There is no limitation on cable length for narrowboat use - the sensor can be in a forward tank and the display at the stern, if you so wish.  

I have given it a name for a bit of fun..

The cost of parts is less than £50.