Construction Of Microcontroller Base Water Level Indicator With Automatic Pump Controller

ABSTRACT

This project presents the concept of a control system into an automatic water pump controller. One of the motivations for this project is the need to bring a solution to the problem of water shortage in various places eliminating the major culprit, waste of water during pumping and dispensing into overhead tanks. I believe that creating a barrier to wastage will not only provide more financial gains and energy saving, but will also help the environment and water cycle which in turn ensures that we save water for our future. Several circuits are put together to ensure proper working of this design, and the block diagram includes the supply unit, the micro- processor unit, the sensor unit, the display unit and the pump drives unit. The power unit is responsible for turning on the entire circuit. Some components are used to set up power unit and they include; a 12v step down transformer, a bridge rectifier circuit, a smoothening capacitor and a voltage regulator IC. The microprocessor (Atmega328) controls virtually all the actions carried out in this design. The sensor unit is responsible for sensing the level of water and transfer the current position of water to the microprocessor. The display unit in the circuit is use to physically show the current position of water in the tank. Experimental performance results indicated that this device is quite suitable for the desired operation, since it maintained the set maximum and minimum levels of respectively, by switching the pump ON/OFF as required. Thus this helps in reducing wastage of water also as electricity. To justify the benefits that can be accrued from this system, cost reduction, less human contact means less cost in terms of labour, maintenance, and utility bills waste.

TABLE OF CONTENT

TITLE PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER ONE

• INTRODUCTION

1.1     BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.2     PROBLEM STATEMENT

1.3     AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

1.4     SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

1.5     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

1.6     APPLICATION OF THE STUDY

1.7     APPLICATION OF THE STUDY

1.8     METHODOLOGY

1.9     PROJECT ORGANISATION

CHAPTER TWO

2.0     LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1     OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

2.2     REVIEW OF RELATED STUDIES

2.3     REVIEW OF DIFFERENT TYPE OF WATER CONTROLLER

2.4     THE CONCEPT OF WATER LEVEL CONTROLLER SYSTEM

CHAPTER THREE

3.0     MATERIALS AND METHODS

3.1     COMPONENTS LIST

3.2     COMPONENTS DESCRIPTION

3.3     SYSTEM CIRCUIT DIAGRAM

3.4     SOFTWARE DESIGN

3.5     ASSEMBLING OF SECTIONS

3.6     PACKAGING

3.7     MOUNTING PROCEDURE

3.8     TESTING

3.9     CASING AND PACKAGING

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0     RESULT AND DISCUSSION

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1     CONCLUSION

5.2     RECOMMENDATION

5.3     REFERENCES

CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                           INTRODUCTION

1.1                           BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

The total amount of water available on Earth has been estimated at 1.4 billion cubic kilometers, enough to cover the planet with a layer of about 3 km. About 95% of the Earth’s water is in the oceans, which is unfit for human consumption. According to United Nations (UN) report, almost half of the world’s workers work in water-related sectors showing most of the jobs dependent on water [1]. Sustainability of available water resource in many reason of the word is now a dominant issue. This problem is quietly related to poor water allocation, inefficient use, and lack of adequate and integrated water management. Water is commonly used for agriculture, industry, and domestic consumption. Therefore, efficient use and water monitoring are potential constraint for home or office water management system [2]. Last few decades several monitoring system integrated with water level detection have become accepted. Measuring water level is an essential task for government and residence perspective. In this way, it would be possible to track the actual implementation of such initiatives with integration of various controlling activities. Therefore, water controlling system implementation makes potential significance in home applications.

The existing automated method of level detection is described and that can be used to make a device on/off. Moreover, the common method of level control for home appliance is simply to start the feed pump at a low level and allow it to run until a higher water level is reached in the water tank. This is not properly supported for adequate controlling system. Besides this, liquid level control systems are widely used for monitoring of liquid levels, reservoirs, silos, and dams etc. Usually, this kind of systems provides visual multi level as well as continuous level indication. Audio visual alarms at desired levels and automatic control of pumps based on user’s requirements can be included in this management system [3]. Proper monitoring is needed to ensure water sustainability is actually being reached, with disbursement linked to sensing and automation. Such programmatic approach entails microcontroller based automated water level sensing and controlling [4].

In the drinking water purification and filtration industry, there is little or no use of automated water pump control systems. The Larger companies employ more sophisticated processes in their operations in terms of automation.

These automated systems use relay logic with a lot of wiring and relays and are outdated making troubleshooting difficult [5]. The manual operations bring a lot of challenges which are multi- faceted and are as follows;

• Many water tanks and valves to be controlled and monitored hence the need for many operators.
• Pumps are started and stopped manually: This may causes overheating of pumps due to the neglect of not stopping them when the water is
• Valves are opened and closed manually: This may cause Tanks to overflow leading to water spillages and loss. The spilled water also leads to slippery floors, water pollution t.c
• It is time consuming and waste generation is very high. The generated waste water results from tank overflows or spillages, broken pipelines and pump

The technique used in this water level indicator with auto On/Off water pump system concentrated with some basic parts which are softly aggregated together. Basic descriptions of some parts are described below.

A.   Water Level Indicator Unit

For water level indication unit, 16×2 LCD is used to display ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) character. ASCII is a 7-bit character set containing 128 characters. It contains the numbers from 0-9, the upper and lower case English letters from A to Z, and some special characters. LCDs have become a cheap and easy way to get text display for embedded system.

B.   Water Level Sensor Unit

To make special water level sensor ultrasonic sensor, this is HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensor. This economical sensor provides 2cm to 400cm of non-contact measurement functionality with a ranging accuracy that can reach up to 3mm. Each HC-SR04 module includes an ultrasonic transmitter, a receiver and a control circuit. This sensor also has additional control circuitry that can prevent inconsistent “bouncy” data depending on the application.

C.   Water Pump Controlling Unit

The water pump is control by connecting it with an output pin of microcontroller via a relay driver circuit. Microcontroller sends a positive signal (+5v) to the relay driver circuit. The output of relay circuit is connected with motor’s negative side of the cable. The positive side of the cable is connected with 220v Ac current.

D.   Microcontroller Unit

Microcontroller is a computer on a chip that is programmed to perform almost any control, sequencing, monitoring and display the function. Because of its relatively low cost, it becomes the natural choice to the designer.

1.2                                   PROBLEM STATEMENT

This device came to mitigate problems such as poor water allocation, inefficient use, and lack of adequate and integrated water management. Automatic Water level indicator with automatic pump control system is designed to monitor liquid level in an overhead tank and at the same time automatically controls the ON/OFF of the water pump. This device helps the user to be aware of the water level in the tank through an LCD.  It is very useful because the user need not worry about the water content during the peak hours of the day. It not only helps in the daily chores but also prevents water wastage. It reduces human labour, saves time and also keeps the user updated regarding the water content.

1.3                    AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

The main aim of this project is to design and construct a water level indicator with automatic On/Off water pump. The objectives of the project are as follows:

1. To develop water level control system, to control the water level in the
2. To make the most commercial and reliable water level controller using as less resources as

• To incorporate an interactive medium between the end user and the

1. To prevent over labour of the pumping machine and prevent it from getting bad
2. To avoid wastage of

1.4                                SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

The scope of this project is to develop user friendly integrated system for automatic water pump control purpose. It will help the user to pump water from source e.g. borehole into the water tank using the automatic pumping system and monitor the water level on the dump monitoring system. It has a sensor that will be detect the water level, and it will generate a signal to control by the microcontroller. The microcontroller will process the data signal and control the motor pump to allow the amount of water that will be flow into the tank. The processed data from microcontroller will be sent to liquid crystal display this will display the water level on the tank. It is significant to know that this design is limited to 10amps electric pump and cannot be use to control water pump above 10 amps.

1.5                                SIGNIFICANCE OF PROJECT

Various type of water pumping system that available in market nowadays, but this system alone with the traditional system can’t overcome the intrusion problem. To make this system more efficient and useful, it should be upgraded to be more efficient. This project is designed with the water level monitoring and control system to make the users easy to monitor the level of water on the tank and automatic ON/OFF water pump. The advantage of automatic water level indicator and controller help to ascertain, control the level of water in overhead tanks, prevent wastage, prevents overflow, dry running of your water pump, and thus saves water, electricity and manpower according to Falahati, M. (2018).

1.5                                       APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT

Water level controller is an application which detects the level water then triggers the pump and vice versa. They are useful devices and play an important role in various industries such as automobile, irrigation, and also at homes, or wherever water is pump either underground or overhead.

1.7                                              SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

This water controller will give you a heads-up the instant over-head tank and underground tank is full or goes below the required level, hopefully giving you time to close windows and bring in possessions. In this work, an Ultrasonic sensor is used in the transmitter circuit, which measures the distance of water level from the upper point of the bottle or Tank. The distance is measured in centimeters and sent to receiver circuit using RF communication. The water level is shown in terms of percentage on a 16×2 LCD module, which is connected to receiver circuit.

1.8                                         METHODOLOGY

To achieve the aim and objectives of this work, the following are the steps involved:

1. Study of the previous work on the project so as to improve it efficiency.
2. Draw a block diagram.

• Test for continuity of components and devices,

1. Design was carried out.
2. Studying of various component used in circuit.
3. Construct the circuit.

• Finally, the whole device was cased and final test was carried out.

1.9                                   PROJECT ORGANISATION

The work is organized as follows: chapter one discuses the introductory part of the work,   chapter two presents the literature review of the study,  chapter three describes the methods applied,  chapter four discusses the results of the work, chapter five summarizes the research outcomes and the recommendations.