Up at the farm this weekend I discovered that the water pump had been running all the time for who knows how long, overflowing the storage tank and wasting electricity. Normally, the level is controlled by a Clay valve at the tank, which is a float actuated pilot valve that just shuts off the flow, and the pump control end senses the stall pressure and shuts it off. There is no electric power available at the tank, some 400-500 feet away from the house and water pump. I rebuilt the valve a few years ago, and at that time I started looking into remote communication, figuring to build a simple system with a small solar PV panel and SLA battery for power at the tank, a float switch, and some kind of ISM transceiver set to span the distance. I even found some good candidate TXRX modules online, but they now appear to be long obsolete and not available anymore. These were nice and simple, with just a few data lines that could be set at either end, and replicated at the opposite end. I revisited this a couple years ago, and couldn't find anything like what I wanted - only fancy ones like for internet protocol and such.
Does anyone know of any good old fashioned simple signalling module sets (that are available) that would do the job? The simplest would be just half-duplex, even one bit OOK, to say for instance, "water too low, turn on pump." More bits and full duplex would offer more control options and status monitoring. I don't want any PC or uP stuff involved - just something that runs when turned on, and conveys the bits, for this very simple operation.
For now, I've had to shut down the pump, and next time up here will look at fixing the valve again, so it's time to find something I can put together fairly quickly and get the electronic RC option going.
Please reply off-list only.
Ed
