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Flexible Automatic Water Level Controller and Indicator

Article · January 2018

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 World Journal of Technology, Engineering and Research, Volume 3, Issue 1 (2018) 359-366

Contents available at WJTER

World Journal of Technology, Engineering

and Research

Journal Homepage: www.wjter.com

Flexible Automatic Water Level Controller and

Indicator
Mallikarjun.G.Hudedmani a*, Nagaraj. S. N b , Shrikanth.B.J c , Ali Adil
Sha d , Pramod.G e
a,b,c,d,e
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, KLE Institute of
Technology, Opposite to Airport, Gokul , Hubballi , Karnataka, India

Keywords
Water level indicator
Controller
Automatic level controller
Flexible level controller
ABSTRACT
Water is very precious for the living beings and
scarcity of the same is gradually increasing. Most of
the cities in the county and that of the world are facing
this problem. This is one of the motivations for the
current work and to deploy techniques in order to save
water and help the environment which in turn ensures
water for the future. Hence, it is of utmost importance to
preserve and save water. In many houses there exists
unnecessary wastage of water due to overflow from
overhead tanks etc. Automatic Water Level Controller
can provide a solution to this problem. Present work
does not use any microcontrollers etc. The operation of
water level controller is based on the fact that water
conducts electricity. As the water level rises or fall the
sensing probes and circuits of the controller detect the
same. These signals are used to switch ON or switch
OFF the pump motor as per requirements. This system
is used to automate the process of water pumping
to over-head tank storage and has the facility to select
the level of water to pump. The logical situations
using electronic circuit manage the system. The
required amount or volume of water can be pumped to
the over head tank by choosing level selector unlike
waiting for the complete filling in the conventional
circuits.

© 2018 WJTER All rights reserved

359
I. INTRODUCTION

Water is very precious and needed for many and every activities. Conservation of water is
similarly important and has adverse effects otherwise. The storage of water for the domestic,
industrial, agricultural or other such needs is very important. The literature in this regard provides
sufficient justification for the use of automatic water level controllers. Many of such circuits make
use of microcontroller or PIC ICs to work for the task [1]. To conserve and make effective use of
water a controller is needed to manage the required volume or level in underground and overhead
tanks of premises. Automatic water level controller circuit is a simple engineering electronic
project does the same with suitable logic and components [2]. The pump motor is of single phase
AC and operated using relay from the controller. The present work do not incorporate any
Microcontroller instead use Transistors and Timer IC555. It will automatically switch ON
and OFF the domestic water pump to fill the over head tank to the set level or volume of water. The
main advantage of this water level controller circuit is that it automatically controls the
water pump without any user interaction. It is built with simple electronic components.

The heart of this pump controller circuit is NE555 IC. Water level controller does help to
control the level of water automatically by using sense probe/circuit of the tank. This system not
only monitors the water level of the tank, it switches ON the motor automatically whenever overhead
tank is empty. The motor is switched OFF when the required level in the overhead tank is reached
along with LED indications. Pump motor is not started whenever underground water level is below
the pre set threshold. Using this system we can avoid the overflow and wastage of the water [3].

II. BLOCK DIAGRAM AND CIRCUIT DIAGRAM OF WATER LEVEL

CONTROLLER AND INDICATOR

The proposed models block diagram is presented in Fig 1 and its electrical circuit diagram in Fig
2. The flexible water level controller uses underground tank, over head tank, pump and the
controller circuit with level probes. The installation of level probes must be done properly in the
over head tank and the controlling unit inside the house.

Fig 1 Block diagram of water level controller

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 Fig 2 Circuit diagram of water level controller
III. WORKING OF WATER LEVEL CONTROLLER AND INDICATOR

The working of water level controller is understood easily by considering the scenario as
explained below. In the Fig 3 left side overhead tank is simulated by a water container and a bottle
at right side to for underground tank. Level probes are installed in overhead and underground tank
as required. Let over head tank is empty or level is below the threshold then the circuit switches
ON the pump motor provided the minimum level of water is present in the underground tank else
do not turns ON. The user has the choice of selecting the water level of over head tank by the selector
given. Let us assume the level chosen is 2 and then the pump status is ON till the water level of the
over head tank reaches to respective sensing probe. Once the probe is sensed the pump turns OFF.
Fig 3 to Fig 5 show the stage wise indication till level 2 is reached. The cyclic operation
of the pump is expected as per the situation and request. For the water level of
underground tank a buzzer is provided to stop the input water Tap to avoid over flow and

unnecessary billing for the water by the water supply board.

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 Fig 3 Photographic view of experimental set up with Pump Motor on

Fig 4 Photographic view of experimental set up with Level 1 reached indicator

Fig 3 shows the pump ON state with LED glow and Fig4 shows the overhead tank level 1 reached
LED. Similarly Fig 5 shows the overhead tank level 2 reached state with glowing LED.
The conventional controller will not be having flexible level control like the one proposed here with.
The current work provides an optional feature of pumping specific volume of water preset by the
selector and probes. The selector switch gives an option to decide the required level to be set for the
pumping. The pump motor is stopped by the circuit once the level is reached. This is very
useful in providing proportional or sharing of water by group of houses from common source by
providing selected volume of water for the user.

Fig 5 Photographic view of experimental set up with Level 2 reached indicator

362
IV. LIST OF COMPONENTS AND DESCRIPTION

The proposed controller requires some electronic components as listed. The Table1 shown below
gives the information about the components used in preparing the water level controller and
indicator.

Table 1 List of components

Description
1. Power supply (9v DC) 6. 1N4007 diode
2. NE 555 timer IC 7. Selector switch.
3. Resistor (100ohm & 10k) 8. BC 547 transistor.
4. Relay (9v,5A) 9. 220 ohm resistor.
5. BC 548 transistor 10. Buzzer.

POWER SUPPLY: A 9V DC battery/bench power supply is used to power up the entire circuit.
NE 555 timer IC: The 555 timer IC is an integrated circuit used in a verity of timer,
pulse
generation and oscillator applications. IC555 package includes 25 2 diodes and 15
transistor, resistor on a silicon chip installed in an 8-pin dual in line package.
Supply voltage Vcc= 4.5 to 15V
Output current(max)=200ma
Max power dissipation=600mW

Power consumption(minimum operating)= 30mW @5V, 225mW@15V

Operating temperature=0 to 75’c

Fig 6 IC 555 Package view Fig 7 Pin diagram of IC 555

RESISTOR: Different resistors as required in the construction of the circuit are used. Generally all
the resistors are ¼ watt rated.
RELAY: Relays are simple switches which are operated both electrically and mechanically. Now a
day’s most of the high end industrial application devices have relays for their effective working the
switching mechanism is carried out with help of electromagnet.

363
 Fig 8 Sample Relay view Fig 9 Relay driver and lamp indication by Relay
DIODE AND LED :
A diode is a semiconductor device which allows current to flow through it in only one direction. A
diode can be used as rectifier that converts AC to DC for a power supply device. Diodes can be used
to separate the signals from radio frequencies. LED is a light emitting diode product that assembled
into a lamp for the use in lighting fixtures. LEDs are used both for general and special purpose
lighting but most LED do not emit light in all directions. Presently multi colored LEDs are available
for commercial use.

Fig 10 Sample Diode view Fig 11 Different Color LEDs

TRANSISTOR:

BC547 is an NPN bi-polar junction transistor (BJT). One element that revolutionized the
has
technology in the past decade is transistor. It is named as transistor which is of two terms ”transfer
of resistor”. Transistor is made from silicon as it is a semiconductor devices used to amplify and
switch electronic signals and electrical power. BC 548 is also general purpose silicon NPN
bi polar junction transistor.

364
 Fig 12 Typical view of NPN Transistor Fig 13 Piezo buzzer

BUZZER:
Is an electronic device commonly used to produce audible sound, light in weight, it’s simple
construction and low price make it usable in various applications like car and many other
reversing indicator, call bells etc. It is operated with 5-12V DC voltage and for the loudest tones
stay around 4 KHz but works quite well from 5khz to 10khz.

V. ADVANTAGES AND APPLICATIONS

The Flexible water level controller and indicator is very useful gadget for house hold and
industrial applications. It can be used for various fluid level controls in industries etc. Following are
the few advantages and applications listed.
Advantages
Easy installation.
Low maintenance.
Compact and elegant design.
Users can control the required level of water in over head tank.
Avoids wastage of water from tanks.
It can maintain exact preset water levels.
The system is very versatile, a numbers of tailor made variations like control of
multiple tanks or multiple pumps are possible.
Being automatic saves man power.
Applications
Used in buildings where the manual monitoring is difficult.
Used in industries to control the water level and in chemical mixing etc.
It can be installed in metro cities where the drinking water is the only water used for all
purposes which keeps the drinking water from being wasted.

VI. CONCLUSIONS AND SCOPE FOR IMPROVEMENT

The proposed flexible automatic water level controller and indicator without any microcontroller is
implemented and found working satisfactorily. The flexibility of the choice of level of over
head tank while pumping the water from the underground tank is found making the distinction
365
 among the available such water level controller circuits and economically affordable. The pump
operation begins only when the low level probe is sensed from the over head tank and a bypass
switch can be provided to start the pump whenever required. The present circuit can be modified
suitably by incorporating low cost controllers like Arduino and IoT to make it operated
from anywhere and able to interact intelligently by messaging or warning.

REFERENCES

[1] Tanmoy Chakraborty, Khairul Alam, Satadal Mal3, Utpal Biswas, Automatic Electronic
Water Level Management System using PIC Microcontroller, International Journal of Emerging
Technology and Advanced Engineering, (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal,
Volume 4, Special Issue 7, April 2014). Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO
9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 4, Special Issue 7, April 2014) International Conference on
Industrial Engineering Science and Application (IESA 2014)

[2] Md. Moyeed Abrar, Rajendra.R.Patil, Logic Gate Based Automatic Water Level
Controller, International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology eISSN: 2319-1163
pISSN: 2321-7308. Web site: http://www.ijret.org

[3] Pranav Rameshji Rokde, Wireless Water Level Indicator Without MCU, Available at
http://electronicsforu.com/electronics-projects/wireless-water-level-indicator-without-microcon-
troller. Web site: https://electronicsforu.com/electronics-projects/wireless-water-level-indicator-
without-microcontroller

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