Home Leak Sensor Final Report: A Kitchen Sink Sensor Used to Detect Water Leaks

Abstract

The home leak sensor project is a smart leak sensor that will detect water leaks under the customer’s kitchen sink. The sensor will alert homeowners with an audible alarm and with an email when there is a leak. The customer is looking for an affordable, fast acting leak detection device that will last at least 6 months before having to replace the batteries, and that is able to collect the leak to minimize clean up. After extensive research, we approached this design focusing on those main points within our decision matrices. We designed a device that will clamp onto the pipes itself allowing us to implement a way to collect the leak and ultimately receive leak detections in under 10 seconds. The longevity of the home leak sensor is accomplished by the microcontroller and batteries we chose. Our microcontroller has sleep mode functionalities and the batteries have a mah rating of 2200. After testing and calculating, we estimate that our home leak sensor will last an average of 935 days before needing to change batteries. Finally, the microcontroller also allows for IOT connections, which we were able to use to connect to the internet and send email notifications to the customer. The home leak sensor is able to detect leaks under 10 seconds, collect ½ cup of water, last an average of 935 days, and sends email notifications to the customer. It passes all of the specifications we tested to, including stability and durability. For future improvements, we may have overdesigned the longevity of the device as the customer only asked to last 6 months. If we were to do this again we would use a mAh rating from our batteries of at most 1000.