Mains powered Water sensor?

[sirmeili]

Is there a mains powered water sensor? Our A/C drain got clogged this past weekend and the shutoff switch didn't work so our utility room got flooded (which holds all my home theater rack equipment). I want to put a water sensor on the floor and not have to worry about batteries going dead and me not getting alerted.

[cowinger]

You could use a mimolite and a water sensor probe.

Maybe these sensors would work.
https://www.amazon.com/UHPPOTE-Overf...r+sensor+probe

[drhtmal]

You could use one of those Battery Eliminator devices. Basically a fake battery with a wall wart power transformer.

[jvm]

Yes. The Aeotec Water Sensor 6 can be USB powered but only if you also get the optional dock which makes for an expensive water sensor, but it is the easiest solution. At Amazon, the sensor is about $60 and the dock about $23. I had considered that but, instead, went with the HomeSeer leak sensor as you can buy 3 of them for the same price and since I have more than a dozen in my home, decided to go with more of the cheaper sensors. I'd use the Aeotec if there were "difficult" locations to place the sensor where changing batteries was a problem.

The Fibaro flood sensor (FGFS-101 ZW5) can also be powered off of a transformer, but it has to be a 12 or 24 v DC transformer and you have to drill holes in the case to do that (awkward design at best). I thought they would make sense for monitoring near the AC units in case the pump failed, so my motivation was the same as yours -- and I thought I could just use the 24v transformer from the AC unit to power them -- but AC units use 24v AC rather than 24 v DC. have a few of these, but in the end, decided that drilling the case and adding a transformer wasn't worth it. The Fibaro's have one nice feature for your application in that they have terminals for a normally closed contact. If the alarm goes off, the contact opens -- you can wire this into your HVAC system to shut down the system if there is flooding (its wired in the same way as an AC drain pump overflow switch - check YouTube for how to wire a HVAC condensate switch) -- again, you have to drill the case of the Fibaro to do that.

Finally, I recall there is one from Dome, but I am not sure.

Finally, finally- it looks like what you may really need is a simple HVAC condensate switch. Your HVAC systems should have one for when the condensate pump breaks or drain clogs - maybe yours is broken? They are only about $10-20 depending on style.

[sirmeili]

I saw the Aeotec ones (After creating this post). $83 seems expensive, but I think for a critical area like this where people may not go every day it might be worth it.. If it wasn't for my son-in-law going in there it could have been a lot worse.

I will check into the Fibaro ones and the mimolite though just to weigh my options

[racerfern]

My Aeotec water sensors go through batteries in less than two weeks and have been retired. The Fibaro ones has lasted over seven months. That said, in my environment high humidity adversely affects battery life. For me, I like the idea of the Fibaro with a couple of wires going to it from my furnace transformer.

[racerfern]

As a follow up, I purchased two Fibaro water sensors and for now have powered one of them with 18vDC. You power it via mains and then include which for me meant connecting to a temporary power supply then including. I reconnected to the wiring I installed in its permanent location. Powered on mains it acts as a repeater and is always listening. So I plan on powering the other one very soon. I had to include un-secure as including secure did not give me the correct child devices. The flood sensor is US certified so I will have to contact HS about this.

I did install a battery as a backup. The only downfall is there is no battery child device when in mains power. I'm not sure if that's Fibaro or HS3. When I included secure, I did get a battery child but no water leak child and that of course is the important one. A re-scan did not produce additional child devices. Also, in mains power the led stays on solid blue to indicate power.

BTW, I tapped into the GoControl Irrigation power supply for my power. I ran about 40ft of 20 or 22ga and only had a voltage drop of .2v at the end of the run to the water sensor.

[racerfern]

I now have three Fibaro water sensors all on mains power. 1 first gen, 2 second gen. The problem now is adjusting temperature compensation via parameter 73 does not work at all. Does anyone else have experience with this?

[racerfern]

Bump. The instructions show parameter 73 is adjustable up or down. Yet no matter what I try, I get the same incorrect reading. IIRC the readings were pretty close when battery powered but are way off when mains powered.

[lveatch]

I know this is an older post. IIRC, Someone once - long time ago - posted where they used aeotec's Micro Switch G2 under their kitchen sink for water detection. The g2 manual switch is just a non powered contact switch and they hooked up a water sensor to it. I wish I could find the post.

I have 2 of the g2's connected to a low voltage momentary push button switch's.

I have also soldered old cell phone chargers (5v 500ma) directly to the battery terminals of aeotec's water sensors replacing 2 AAA's.