Water overflow pail detector

Question

I am looking for a "water overflow pail detector".
It basically will make some sound (e.g. beeping) when the water in a pail was about to overflow.
The detector must also be water-proof otherwise the electrical source to this detector will be short-circuit.

I have a very slow running tap that I used to fill up pail to wash my car.
However, I don't want to sit down there watching that slow tap to fill up the pail and
I also don't want it to overflow if I just went to watch the TV.
Therefore, I need to put that detector on the pail somehow in order to detect if it is about to overflow

I am not looking for a detector to measure the level of the water in the pail or tank or something like in the link - Level of a water tank with a microcontroller

Answer 1

LEVEL DETECTOR TO SOUND AN ALARM WHEN A SLOWLY FILLING PAIL OF ATE RIS ALMOST FULL

• Google: water level detector circuit

• Click on "images"

MANY water level detector circuits each with its own web page.

This should suit your need.

---

A slightly different way:

N1 can also be 74C14, 74HC14 or any "Schmitt trigger" CMOS gates.

---

This circuit and several others here

---

Float switches:

Have a look at these images "float switch" .
Each one of these images is hot linked to webpage.

These are probably even more likely to be apposite "float switch" bucket

From the above link:

---

Using "float switch" low voltage

This looks about what you want. Discussion here

All these come, as you will have seen if you looked, by using a simple Google search with some obvious terms and then looking at "images". A very powerful tool. Well worth spending the time required to learn how to use it.

Answer 2

A float switch in series with a piezo buzzer and a battery will do what you need. Depending on whether it's ok to make permanent modifications to the bucket, you can either use a vertical float switch on a plank across the top of the bucket, or a horizontal float switch in the side of the bucket. Other techniques for detecting water (conductivity, ultrasound, capacitance, heat transfer) can work too, but they tend to be more complex and expensive than a simple float switch.