Flood control – the bathroom, kitchen (water leakage from appliances)

Water management 01.03.2020 17:17 01.03.2020 17:17

Flood control in living areas, usually fitted with tiles and similar smooth flooring (bathrooms, kitchens, but also utility rooms) can be done using the FLA2100 adhesive flood sensor.

The sensor should be glued on the flooring in the point where possible flooding should be monitored. The FLA2100 sensor is a 15 mm-wide strip, which is fitted with conductive electrodes on the edges and with a self-adhesive layer on the underside. The strip is supplied in lengths of 2 m and 50 m; the required length should be cut off and output pins should be carefully soldered to the conductive electrodes. The pins should then be connected to the appropriate analogue Foxtrot system input. The strips can be connected in parallel and the presence of water can be monitored in several places, e.g.under the appliances in the kitchen unit, etc.

The strip may be connected either to special condensation measurement inputs,e.g. the C-AM-0600I or the C-HM-0308M (these two have a high sensitivity even for liquids with low conductivity, of a very short pieces of the strip can be used), or to the analogue inputs for standard measurement of water leakage, with the resistance up to 160 kΩ (used e.g. for measurements of NTC temperature sensors, see Chapter 10).

Resistance in the dry state is much higher than 160 kΩ; under flooding - depending on the amount of water, the tape length and the purity of the water - the resistance decreases in the order of dozens of kΩ, e.g. an immersed 10 cm strip may have a resistance of about 80 to 100 kΩ, and if the immersed strip is longer, the resistance decreases even more.

 


Fig. 1. The FLA 2100 flood sensor

 

Notes:

  1. It is recommended to solder the insulated stranded wires (with 0.5 to 0.8mm diameter) to the electrodes; the length of the cable from the sensor to the measuring module may be dozens of meters, e.g. the SYKFY 2x2x0.5. The polarity is irrelevant.

  2. The example of electrical connection is identical e.g. with the previous one; also the NTC resistive temperature sensors are connected in the same way (see Chapter 10), etc.