Our septic control box has a piezo alarm that sounds off for both high water and low air pressure conditions. The piezo sounds at just the right frequency as to be nearly indistinguishable from my tinnitus. But it is very annoying to the neighbors.
Using some guidance from another thread on installing a wireless notification hack into the control box, I now receive said notifications on my phone when either condition takes place. The problem is that in order to silence the alarm I must be home so that I can go out to the control box, on the outside of the house. I travel with some frequency and it seems to never fail that the alarm will sound while I am gone.
What I would like now is to install some kind of (simple) remote cut-off capability, using an inline wireless on/off switch that is small enough to fit inside the control box.
The circuit for the piezo is simple: line in, neutral out. Here is the schematic…
I used the Yolink contact sensor simply as proof of concept because I had it, but not a Z-Wave contact. I’ll be replacing that with Z-Wave.
I apologize for not explaining this better. I know enough to hack my way through some of this, but some of the details on the schematic is above my head.
I appreciate any insight or tips on how to go about my project. Thanks, in advance!!
Sounds like a very useful project! There are a few things we need to know first before we can help.
what country are you in? The device selection does vary.
do you currently have a smartthings/Aeotec hub and if so, which model?
if not, do you want to get a hub? You would need one for Z wave, but there are a couple of Wi-Fi options that can work without the hub.
what’s the distance from the house to the cutoff switch? That can affect device selection.
what’s the exact size of the space you have for the cut off device?
does it need to have a manual control option at the box? Or is the app enough? That usually comes into play if you have other people checking on the alarm when you aren’t there.
Assuming your schematic is right, the easiest way to silence the alarm would be to simulate the existing momentary pushbutton shown that silences the alarm (shown as AL1-2). A relay that has contact that is rated for 120V AC appears to be what you would need to accomplish this–without knowing the existing SR relay’s technical info, I"m not sure what the contact would need to be rated (amps)…so, more info is needed…like @JDRoberts mentioned above.
Similar, but not the same. That poster wants to silence his alarm, whereas I want to know when mine goes off. I also want to know when my pump runs for an unusually long time.
Ok, I’ll ask a moderator to restore yours as soon as possible. Sorry about the confusion!
If you don’t want to wait, you can just start another new thread in this section of the forum, under projects. Projects are allowed to be similar, the issue is often in the small details.
Thank you so much for the replies! I’ll try and fill-in the blanks…
USA…up on an island in Puget Sound, so our septic systems are very important to us!
I have the ST hub, version 3.
I’m fully invested in the Smartthings world and plan to replace the Yolink wireless contact switch with a Z-Wave model. I used the Yolink because I had it sitting around and to provide proof on concept.
The switch sits on the side of the house, perhaps 30 feet from the hub inside. Have a number of repeaters throughout the house.
Space inside the enclosure for the septic control is limited. Enough for something the size of a door/window sensor, or maybe a bit larger.
I’ve thought about simply putting an inline switch on the line to the alarm and turning it off. Now that I get notifications on my alarm, is it really necessary at this point? But in the end, I’d rather have the option to control the alarm through smartthings.
7 As far as I can tell, everything inside the control system is 110VAC. I don’t see anything marked 12V…even the piezo alarm is 110V.
I’ll sketch out some of the details inside the box, which is fairly easy to follow with the schematic which I attached earlier.
Yes, the schematic is the one for this system. Yes, the indicated momentary push button that is in-place will silence the alarm, but only for about 1 minute. If the cause is not corrected, the alarm sounds off again.
Yes, this thread for a cut-off on the alarm is unique from the other septic notification related threads. I used this thread to help me with my own notification application to receive notices on my phone for when the alarm is set off…
Sorry if I didn’t make this clear when I posted.
Just a little further detail on my alarm notification installation…
The schematic on my septic (posted above) shows block Terminal-5 and block Terminal-Neutral designated for a remote alarm installation. This circuit will close when the Floyd Bell Alarm is energized and is what I used to wire PAM-1 relay.
From the relay I connected the Yellow/Normally Closed wire, and the Blue Common wire to the contact sensor.
The contact sensor pairs with a Yolink hub that resides in the mechanical room in my lower level of the house.
While I’m fully invested in the Smartthings universe, with about 40 paired devices, I’m quite satisfied with Yolink. I became interested in Yolink primarily for their water leak sensor, which run about $17 on Amazon. I have 10 of these throughout the house and have been totally reliable. Yolink claims their devices have a range of 1/4 mile, so it is a particularly good fit for remote site monitoring.
I believe this configuration would work equally well with a Z-wave or Zigbee sensor.
It’s weird that the alarm would restart after a minute. It looks like the SR relay is sealed in with itself, so unless the two alarm relays drop out, it should stay sealed in.
Anyway…I think an “easy” alarm disable would be to put a NC contact in series with the bell alarm. Then just flip the switch to turn off the bell alarm. I’m not sure the best solution for it, though.
Right now I have the line to the alarm pulled off so it won’t ring. The septic installer is supposed to come out Friday to fix this mess…it’s a new home install and only 2 years old.
I’ll keep looking for a way to switch it remotely. Thanks!
Looking at this more, I think the Zooz Zen51 dry contact relay MAY work. Their documenation is a little lacking on alternative connections (or I can’t find it) than what they show, but I think this could easily work…and it’s fairly small.
I’ll have to study this. Electrical comes slowly to me. Would need to tap this into a constant power source, and then wire this inline to the piezo alarm. Looks promising…thanks!
