I assume all responsibility for my actions, as this was something done out of curiosity to see what was all inside this little magic box to determine if there was anything that could physically be compromised with full submersion. I understand that I have voided any warranty or support of this device.
First, this device is well sealed. Initially I thought I could just pry the base from the case using a small pry or a box knife. Not the case…
A couple of shots from the heat gun and some prying with a box knife I was able to remove the casing from the base.
Honestly it was what I thought… not much to it. The line comes in and there are two sensors that when water touches them completes a circuit alerting the app to a leak.
What I found most interesting is that there is a rubberized sealant that would assumably block water from getting inside the case, ensuring that the only water detecting is coming from outside the casing at the exposed contact sensors.
It appears to be water tight all the way around even though you can see seams on the device.
Wow! That’s awesome to see. I am glad they used so much sealant everywhere! This makes me feel better about continuing to use at least the probes in a submersible way without huge fears of damage. Even if they do get damaged, it’s only $5.
In the last pictures you can tell there is a tiny hole of missing sealant right where the cord is shown, though it is showing insulated wiring. Who knows where the exposed metal wiring is and if that is all fully covered by sealant (I am guessing so). But it is good reminder that there COULD be some probes that might not have sealant set in a way that water could potentially get to the wiring…so those of us who continue to use them as submersible notifications (ie: to be alerted when water levels get too low in a swimming pool, pet water, etc) should realize that while these probes appear to be well designed and protected with sealant, we still have a small risk using them in ways they weren’t explicitly designed for. I’m okay with that. I get a lot of functionality using them as submersibles knowing that there’s a chance some might possibly not survive use that way.
Thanks for assuming the risk and taking the time to dissect one of these for us @R.Good This was very reassuring to me that a lot of my probes should be okay for the most part if I choose to risk them as submersibles! My thanks.
The sealant goes all the way to the case, the gap is one small section then covers the wires where they connect to the sensors.
After playing a little more I did press down on the wire and it did create a gap at the wire entry point… BUT I am sure I comprised the integrity of the sealant with the heat gun.
Regardless of how well it may look, @Newshound ’s suggestion to seal externally is still not a bad idea.
Not because something could get damaged but if water does get in, its in… and your water level will always be good even when it isn’t
From what you saw, how likely is it for water to seep in through the metal contact points? Was there good sealant all around the metal contact points so water was unlikely to leak through there? I know it may be hard to know for sure since some of it may have been compromised with using the heat gun.
I accidentally cut through the cable but what I found was the cable insulation does not go all the way up to the sensors and the mass amount of sealant is used to insulate the exposed wires up to where the wire is soldered to the contact sensor.
With that my thought is this… if we really want to use these as a water level sensors, ditch the case completely and affix the sensors at the level you want… the case is a vehicle of trapping water where the sensors are exposed inside of the case.
So, touching a wire to the leak probe will close the circuit and cause a leak detection, but if you remove the the probe and touch a wire to the connectors on the side of the main sensor it doesn’t work/detect.
At first I thought this meant maybe the probe had some kind of chip in it, but these pictures pretty much confirm that the probe is nothing more than a protected wire. This indicates that the previous suggestion was correct that it’s the magnet on the probe that triggers the sensor to activate that connector to start checking the probe.
In full transparency I tried twisting the connectors back to the probe connector line and I could not get the probe to detect a leak…
The leak detector identifies that there is a probe, just not the introduction of water. I feel like I want to start over again without accidentally cutting the wire.
Yes, its the magnet in the probe that activates the leak sensor’s knowledge of the probe.
I put one of the wyze v2 contact sensor’s magnet next to the leak sensor and the app notified me and showed the leak probe icon as there was one connected.
Could a person not adhere or attach something that would make the sensor float as the water level increased, if this situation occured? Like a floaty for a kid. That would keep it from getting submerged. Another idea might be to glue a sponge to the bottom of the sensor. This way the water would leech up to the sensor but the sensor itself could be elevated above a predetermined level to also prevent a full submerge. The sponge of course could float I guess if it got deep enough.
Pretty much any two non-corroding conductors mounted on an insulator work the same. There are plenty of sensor tip devices out there on other sites that are a lot simpler. Inclding the one on my standalone leak detector.
For me it makes more sense to have a camera pointing at the two basement rooms that have water and just keep my legacy water leak detectors. The camera is set for sound. If a leak detector goes off I get a basement alert and I can see exactly what’s happening.
this leak probe not seal well, it will keep water in the case that makes the sensor body false alarm for leaking, I hope the sensor body does not have the same issue.
