In Texas — at least around Houston — we don’t have basements. We do, however, have bilges. Both of these are subject to taking on water when no one is paying attention. A friend of mine asked me what I thought of an Instructable that showed how to make a water sensor using a few discrete components. The circuit would probably work — it relied on the conductivity of most water to supply enough current to a bipolar transistor’s base to turn it on.
It is easy to overthink something like this, so I told my friend he should go with something a little more old-fashioned. I don’t know the origin of it, but it is older than I am. You can make a perfectly good water detector with things you probably already have around the house. My point isn’t that you should (or shouldn’t) construct a homemade water sensor. My point is that you don’t always need to go to the high-tech solution.
Continue reading “Detecting Water With And Without Headaches”
