Wireless Mail Alarm Modified As Dry Contact Monitor

We have a sump pump in our basement…actually we have two. One is primary and one is backup. Soooo, what is our sump pump for? Well, when you have a bathroom below ground level, you have to help the pooh pooh go up to ground level to hit the sewer line.

Well, what happens when your pumps quit working…hmmm. Not good hehehehe. So, we needed a way to alert us when the redundant pump kicked in. The redundant pump has an extra set of dry contacts, so all I have to do is tie into that.

It wouldn’t be cost effective to run a cable all the way between our NOC and the pump. Nor would it be cost effective to put an ethernet module in place.

I started searching for something wireless and I found the “mailbox alarm”. This guy averages around $35. It’s got a tilt sensor that you mount to the mailbox door. It sounds an alarm on the base station when the mailbox is opened.

I took the sensor apart and wired some cat5 into it to connect the dry contacts. I also mounted a test switch so we can do some weekly tests without having to fire the pumps.

Here’s a little video of the module in action:

If you need a quick and easy solution to do some remote monitoring, give it a go.