Skip to content
IEMI Labs
All product designs
IndustrialDesign rev A, 27 Oct 2026: CAD, fit checks and assembled 3D model done; not built

PumpStation

One board in the pump panel: alarm callouts, pump health, gauge readings and hot breakers

One board in a small water or wastewater pump station's control panel does the jobs of LiftStation AI, GaugeRead AI and PanelHeat AI: it calls people when the level is high or a pump fails, tracks each pump's health from its current, reads the discharge pressure gauges with a camera on the panel stand, and watches the breakers and contactors for heat from the inside of the door.

Who buys it
Small towns, water districts and private owners (HOAs, RV parks, mobile-home parks) with lift or booster stations and no SCADA, buying direct or through their pump contractor.
Why it pays
$1,690 + $49/month per station instead of $2,827 + $87/month for our three products separately (list prices on our pages); every avoided routine visit is worth $500–2,000 in some vendor estimates (est.).
Target price
$1,690 per station + $49/month (target)
First-minute wow
One card per station at 7 am: 'Pump 2 discharge 21 psi, 3 below normal, current up 12%: likely debris. P2 contactor L3 9 °C hotter than L1 and L2. No alarms overnight.'
See the CAD designConcept page
PumpStation concept: the idea and where each part goes
The concept. The CAD design is below, under Printable CAD.

What the research found

And how this design answers it

  • Three devices, three radios, three apps → one ESP32-S3 board on the panel's DIN rail with one nRF9151 LTE-M radio and one app
  • GaugeEye ran on D cells with its own brain and LoRaWAN → a wired USB camera head on the panel stand, powered and run by the same board; no batteries to change
  • PanelSense needed its own node, battery, LoRa link and a site hub → the MLX90640 sits in a magnet pod on the inside of the door and talks I²C to the board
  • PanelSense's 55° array would see only part of a small panel from the door → 110° MLX90640 sees the whole breaker row from 13–16 cm
  • Gauge pressure and pump current tell the same story twice → the app puts discharge pressure next to each pump's current and capacity, so debris, air-lock and wear separate
  • Bare-busbar RFID joint tags ($167 reader) do not pay in a 100 A station panel → dropped; PanelHeat stays the product for large switchgear

Use case

A slow pump and a warm contactor at a town lift station

Water operatorPublic works superintendentElectrician

  1. 01Trigger: over two weeks pump 2's pump-down time grows 20% and its current rises 12%
  2. 02Detection: the camera reads pump 2 discharge at 21 psi against a normal 24; the thermal eye sees pump 2's contactor L3 9 °C above L1 and L2
  3. 03Alert: the morning card flags 'pump 2: likely debris, contactor L3 warming' with the trends; no callout because nothing is urgent
  4. 04Action: the operator pulls and clears pump 2 on the planned round, and the electrician re-torques L3 the same visit

Outcome: Two problems fixed in one planned visit instead of a weekend failure (est.)

How it works

Architecture

  1. 01

    Sense: float and IS-relay contacts, contactor aux contacts, pump CTs, an OV5640 USB camera on the gauges and an MLX90640 on the breakers

  2. 02

    Decide: the ESP32-S3 logs pump cycles, reads the needles and finds hot regions; alarms are decided on the board

  3. 03

    Send: the nRF9151 sends MQTT over LTE-M; it also runs on the backup cell to report a power cut

  4. 04

    Tell: voice and SMS callouts with acknowledgement, one station page and a monthly report

Hardware

Real parts, buyable today

Bill of materials: about $308 per station at qty 1 including 2 CTs, PSU, camera, thermal eye and antenna (est.); IoT SIM about $2/month.

BlockPartWhy this part
BrainEspressif ESP32-S3-WROOM-1-N16R8USB host for the camera, 8 MB PSRAM for frames and the thermal map
RadioNordic nRF9151 (LTE-M / NB-IoT)From LiftStation; also the power-fail supervisor on the backup cell
Pump inputs2× Magnelab SCT-0750-050 CTs + TI ADS131M04, 2× TLP291-4Per-pump current and 8 isolated panel inputs
Gauge cameraOV5640 USB (UVC) board + 2× SFH 4715AS 850 nmGaugeEye's sensor and flash on a 1.5 m lead
Thermal eyeMelexis MLX90640 110° + SHT40PanelSense's array, wider lens for a door 13–16 cm from the breakers
PowerMean Well HDR-15-24 + Saft LSH20 backup cellPanel 24 V for everything; the cell only for the outage call

Mechanical

Printable CAD

12 parts, generated from code and checked as closed solids. Pick a part to inspect it, or download the STL files to print.

Loading the CAD…

Real CAD · drag to rotate · scroll to zoomReal CAD · swipe sideways

Open risks we are working on

  • USB UVC on the ESP32-S3 at 1.5 m outdoors and I²C over a 0.6 m door lead are unproven until the bench test
  • Gauge reading accuracy is GaugeEye's open question: no accuracy claim until 95% of reads are within ±2% of full scale on the bench
  • The thermal eye sees plastic breaker and contactor bodies only; bare copper needs PanelHeat's tags, and an AHJ may refuse an added device in listed gear
  • Wet wells are classified areas: nothing goes in the well, the board reads only safe-side contacts, and a wrong connection is a hazardous-area mistake
  • Plain cellular alarms cost $15–25/month; the gauges, pump health and heat have to be worth the switch from an existing dialer

Design stage only: nothing on this page is for sale. Specifications and prices are targets.