Making a Raspberry Pi pool monitor

[lightmaster]

I'm gonna use a Raspberry Pi to collect and remotely display some info to monitor my pool. I'll end up monitoring pump on/off, water/air temperature, salinity, and pH. Gonna start with just whether the pump is on and off and while researching how to detect electrical voltage/current, I remembered that my Circupool SWG does have something to make sure the water is flowing. Looking at the connector for the flow switch, am I correct in assuming its just a simple switch and the SWG is just checking for continuity between the 2 wires that are in the RJ11 cable? I'm thinking I could just use a phone splitter or splice into the wires and have the Raspberry Pi also check for continuity. This would also assure me that the pump is actually running, vs something frying and its getting electricity but not actually rotating.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

PM lovemyazpool as he has a post up on hackster.io all about his build.

DIY automation build - Page 2

 

[jseyfert3]

Checking for continuity requires applying a voltage for the switch. 24 volts is pretty common in industrial stuff, and it's likely higher than the 3.3 or 5 volt input for the Pi. Be sure to see what voltage it sends to the flow switch before hooking anything up. You could always use an opto-isolator.