A Raspberry Pi can help satiate most of my neurosis, including this one. Using a Honeywell HumidIcon Digital Humidity/Temperature Sensor and a Maxbotix Ultrasonic Range Finder I can monitor basement humidity, temperature and sump well levels.My first component to integrate was the range finder. The Maxbotix LV-EZ4 can operate in one of two modes - either providing an ASCII representation of the range using RS232 serial communication or using an analog voltage. I dorked around with two possible ways of using this - feeding an analog signal through an Adafruit Trinket and have the values translated into an I2C signal. However - I had a 5v Trinket - and even with constructing voltage dividers I couldn't quite coordinate the right voltages to negotiate with the Pi. I punted and used the serial port from the LV-EZ4, however the Pi uses UART and so I had to create a logic inverter using a recycled NPN transistor. Once I inverted the signals from the range finder, the Pi was able to read the inbound ASCII representation of the range.
After I had the range finder working, I used Sparkfun's Honeywell breakout board via I2C to communicate temperature and humidity to the Pi. Both the range finder and the breakout board fit nicely on a mini breadboard, sharing voltage and ground while splitting out I2C data, clock and RS232 data feeds. Once permissions were correctly set and kernel modules loaded, things appeared to be working nicely.I wanted to save the range finder from water splashes, or at least slow its eventual decay. I re-used the case from the SD card I purchased for the Raspberry Pi, cutting out holes for the extrusions in the range finder board. Corners were then covered in electrical tape, and the seams were covered in hot glue. No, it's not pretty. No, it may not add to the LV-EZ4's lifespan. It was at least worth a shot however, and I've added a bit of crush/drop protection.
Everything is hooked into a Raspberry Pi Model A, just to save a few bucks. For an enclosure I ripped apart an old Netgear wireless access point, which easily housed the mini breadboard and the Pi. I decided to try things out but stumbled upon an unsettling fact... there are no power outlets near the sump pump well. Undeterred, I went looking for any long length of wire and found twenty feet of RJ11 telephone cable. It had four total wires - which would be more than enough to carry voltage, ground and signal wires. I sloppily spliced the wire, soldered it onto three jumpers, attached one side to the breadboard and another to the range finder. To my surprise - it actually worked. I was able to string the range finder all the way across the room, which also made ambient humidity readings more accurate.
In much the same way as I created the Bottle application for the garage door security monitor, I created a Bottle app to host REST APIs and display the well depth, temperature and humidity as well as allow Jabber (e.g. Google Talk) clients to request the status of the well and the climate. It all is working well so far, however I still need to tweak the Honeywell I2C code to make sure the component re-samples conditions at every request. Right now it is just fetching the currently stored values.Right now the range finder is resting atop the sump pump well and is just waiting for the upcoming rains. My eventual goal is to create a home dashboard that aggregates all sensor data from around the house: sump pump well depth, basement temperature and humidity from the Basement Monitor APIs, ground-level temperature and humidity from a Nest thermostat, garage door state and camera feeds from the Garage Security APIs and maybe even power data from an attached APC UPS. The Bottle apps would then work to expose sensor data as REST APIs, and a more powerful Play application would serve the user interface, archive historical data, provide alerts and indicate trends.
Good article.
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