I made an RC boat from a kickboard using a 3D printed bilge pump thruster to test a waterproof ultrasonic sensor for use as a depth sounder to work with my Arduino.
Awesome work! Thnak You... I am willing to build something exactly like that to be able to make a bathymetric survey of shallow waters (below 1 meter). I am a sailor, too. Isn´t possible to change the jsn-sr04t settings so the timing is ok for shallow waters? If not, I am willing to rebuild the transducer driver, since the transducer provided with the "jsn" works underwater and is cheap.
Thank you very much! I dont know if it is possible to change the functions of the sensor itself. I am thinking it might be a problem with the propagation of the echo impulse in water, that it disturbs the "listening" in some way. If there is a longer pause between pulse and echo, the soundwaves have more time to "calm down". But a long pause means a deeper minimum depth. I did also test another sensor recently that has 2 separate transducers, which worked great for small distances in air, but it didnt work underwater. Next I will try to modify a HC-SR04 with waterproof transducers and do some tests with that.
How well do these sensors work when not pointing directly down? I was thinking 1 vertical sensor could give a depth reference, the multiple other sensors rotated around the middle sensor at a fixed angle could be used to project a cone and work as a mapper.
Sorry, I haven't tried that. If I understand correctly, you are looking for something like a side scan sonar? I think the resolution you can get from such a setup won't be high enough to really see something. But as I said I haven't tried. I am just interested at getting the depth directly under the boat, which is directly under the GPS antenna.
Hey Martin, do you still have the code of the underwater test for the JSN-SR04T sensor from your previous video? If so, do you mind sharing it as I would like to do my own tests with the sensor.
Hey Amar, you just pull the trigger pin high for a short time to trigger the sensor, then use pulseIn(echopin, HIGH) to get the duration of the echo pins signal. I did divide that duration by 2 and again by 6.7385 (for water) to get the distance in cm.
Great video! Please, if you find a way or some sensor capable of measuring these smaller distances underwater I would love it if you could share. I am currently working on a similar project
The code is super easy: You just pull the trigger pin high for a short time to trigger the sensor, then use int duration = pulseIn(echopin, HIGH) to get the duration of the echo pins signal. I did divide that duration by 2 and again by 6.7385 (for water) to get the distance in cm.
So with what you know so far how easy would you say a project like this would be to make? I'm in dire need of a way to measure my 50ft hand dug well and so far your video has been the only thing close to what id like to make. Basically all I need to do is get water depth, I assume from there with the Arduino I can wirelessly transmit that data to something that would let me monitor it. It's baffling how there really isn't anything commercially available that's budget friendly to simply monitor the depth of a well. Anyway good luck with your project!
Thank you very much! I am happy someoneone finds my videos helpful. As for your project: You can use an ESP32 that reads the sensor value, set up a basic web page, and access the values via the IP adress in your web browser. That should be quite an easy project.
Can you share details of hardware installation, how to assemble and how to code in the Arduino, im excited and curious to know even im not studying in electronics field. 0:30
I am doing this as well as a STEM project and I have some questions that you might be able to answer or help me with. Did you find an affordable sensor that does work well underwater? And how did you make the boat itself? Thanks in advance and keep up the good work :)
Hi Andy! Thank you very much! I had sensors that work underwater, but not in very shallow water. I just ordered some new ones which look promising, but I didn't have time to test them so far. The boat is just a swimming board for kids made of foam. I added a thruster to that which I made of a bilge pump and 3D printed parts. It is controlled by standard RC components.
Unfortunately nowhere. It is quite a project in progress. Currently I disassembled the little boat and made an RC thruster for my dinghy. I will do more test of the sensors from the dinghy in spring when it gets warmer again.
Great content, love this project so far! One tip for the gps, use a seperate patch antenna and place it above the electronics to avoid interference (or the whole receiver/antenna module). Gps signals are pretty delicate in that way, even an incorrectly placed usb cable can make it not work. Ublox has a great document about antennas and placements, you should check it out!
