DIY floats

[GasSavers_maximilian]

Yes, you're right, that was the one.

[GasSavers_maximilian]

Finally got some acceptable tubing. Couldn't get the size I wanted, so I used my lathe to rebore some plastic tubing for loose fitting bearings. Its only purpose is to protect the polyurethaned foam from possible wear. Here's a picture of what I have in mind. The pink is the polyurethaned foam, which has the plastic bearing with a small piece of aluminum tubing at the top which would be connected to a flexible wire (not shown). The float rides on a long aluminum tube that is connected to common and pins placed in it would be touched by the float borne contact. The central tube would also provide a place to run the wires, keeping them out of the way.

[GasSavers_maximilian]

Added a top view, as well as a picture of the float making electrical contact. Still no wires, though (the program I'm using kind of sucks for that sort of thing).

[dkjones96]

Ran across this today.

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/pro...oducts_id=9072

It'd only read the, say, last 7" of the tank but they'd work great if all you cared about was the level nearing empty or you didn't mind spending the money for a couple of them...

An aluminum pipe on a float that raises or lowers into another aluminum pipe just a little bit bigger would work if you could read the capacitance too and would be cheaper.

[GasSavers_maximilian]

Neat. I considered just using capacitance (oil vs air dielectric would change it), but thought the switches were simpler. Actually been getting some decent weather so this project's on the back burner.