I have not, but I'm ...
Published by Ari Daniels, Water Resources Engineer
I have not, but I'm interested in the discussion. Let's start with a couple questions.
- When you say *remote* monitoring, are you aiming to have the sensor(s) in place, sending data to you while you are elsewhere? Or are you planning on visiting the pumps/boreholes/monitoring equipment to download the data manually?
- What are you hoping to monitor specifically? Quantity pumped, times pumped, quality metrics/contaminants, etc.?
- How rural, and where? I live in Appalachia in western Virginia in the United States. It's quite rural in many ways, and yet we have telephone and internet, USPS/FedEx/UPS service, improved roads, etc. There's rural Virginia, rural South Dakota, rural Haiti, etc. You get the idea. :-)
Cheers
1 Comment
@Ari, Q1, very remote, site is in Southern Hemisphere, I am in North. Q2 Whether the pump is broken down and stopped working or not. Quantity pumped would be good an quality some way down the line. Q3 no copper, no GSM, only the Sky so satellite seems the most likely option.
Published by Laurie Reynolds, Aquamatix Ltd - Managing Director
1 Comment
Hmm. Well, upside is that the monitoring equipment itself would probably be very simple. Many ways to make it happen, I believe.
One of the lowest-tech/cheapest could just be a small reservoir with two electrical contacts in it, and as long as water is flowing or has flowed within a certain amount of time (calculate volume required and orifice size for drawdown time), a circuit is closed sending a simple 0/1 signal. Fancier, and likely still very inexpensive option exist for the monitor itself. Hopefully sunlight is something you could count on out there for a small PV cell and battery for power.
The satellite transmitter is something I know nothing about, though I imagine that is also a fairly simple thing. I have no idea at all about cost of either equipment or service required.
And, sorry I can only offer the general thoughts, rather than any direct experience or component/process specifications. Here's a thought:
Check out EnviroDIY, WikiWatershed, and the Stroud Water Research Center. While this is geared toward water quality, water presence/quantity is also something involved in most monitoring projects. I don't know whether the transmitter systems are geared only toward cellular (GSM/CDMA) or also have satellite options, but there's a lot of information, and undoubtedly a community of people who know a heck of a lot more than I do about this stuff.
Published by Ari Daniels, Water Resources Engineer