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IEMI Labs
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SensingDesign complete (stages 1-6), not built

TroughTally

The float-valve fill kit on your stock trough, made smart

Meters the water going into each trough and watches the level, so it can tell a supply cut, a float stuck open, a leak and freezing apart from cattle drinking; the WinterWatch kit adds whether the tank heater is drawing power and the AC voltage on the water. Monitor and alert only: it never opens or shuts the water or switches the heater.

Who buys it
Cow-calf ranchers with 3 to 30 troughs on pipelines, wells or solar pumps who drive out to check water today.
Why it pays
A stuck-open 3/4 in float valve wastes 7,200-14,400 gal a day and can drain a 2,500 gal storage tank in 5-14 h (est.); a 5-trough ranch pays about $1,780 over 3 years vs about $3,490 for Gallagher satellite monitors (est.).
Target price
$199 per trough + $249 gateway (or existing LoRaWAN) + $36/trough/year; WinterWatch +$99 per trough (target)
First-minute wow
'North trough: falling, no inflow for 6 min. Supply cut upstream' on the phone, hours before a level-only monitor would see the trough half empty.
See the CAD designConcept page
TroughTally 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

  • Level-only monitors alert late on a supply cut → a meter before the float valve means 'level falling with no inflow' fires in 1-20 min vs 9-181 min for a 50% low-level alarm (CAD report, est.)
  • Cattle deaths came from water cut upstream of a working float (hand valve, disconnected line) → supply-cut is the first alert, not 'tank low'
  • A stuck float drains the storage tank and then every trough → 'meter running with the level at the brim for 10 min' alert
  • Health claims for herd water are weak → the CAD report shows a herd total only sees drops of about 11.5% or more, so it is sold for herd-wide problems (gate open, cattle out, water quality, heat), never one sick cow
  • Winter: extension advice is to check heated waterers every day, and above 0.5 V on the water some cattle drink less (UNL G2292) → WinterWatch reads heater current through a listed line splitter and water-to-ground volts across a 500 ohm cow-contact shunt, alerting on heater failed, thermostat stuck on, iced over and stray voltage

Use case

Hand valve left shut after cleaning, 34 C day

RancherHired handNeighbour on call

  1. 01Trigger: the hand cleans the north trough and forgets to reopen the line valve
  2. 02Detection: the herd drinks the level 25 mm below the float's shut-off with no meter pulse
  3. 03Alert: 'North trough: supply cut' to the rancher and the hand within minutes, with the level and water temperature
  4. 04Action: the hand drives back and opens the valve the same hour

Outcome: Cattle never go without water in the heat; one trip instead of a daily water run (est.)

How it works

Architecture

  1. 01

    Sense: meter pulses counted while asleep, level and water temperature every 15 min, faster while the level moves; WinterWatch adds heater current and water-to-ground volts

  2. 02

    Decide: meter x level state machine on the RAK3172 (drinking, supply cut, stuck open, leak, freezing)

  3. 03

    Send: 12-byte LoRaWAN uplinks every 30 min, alerts at once, to one gateway at the house

  4. 04

    Tell: phone push and SMS, daily herd water vs the weather-adjusted expectation

Hardware

Real parts, buyable today

Bill of materials: about $188 per trough at qty 1, about $95 at qty 100 (est.), plus a $179 gateway per ranch; WinterWatch kit about $74.50 at qty 1 (est.).

BlockPartWhy this part
InflowDAE AS200U-75P 3/4 in pulse-output water meter + Y-strainerZero-power reed pulses; AWWA C700 meter rated for drinking water
Radio + MCURAKwireless RAK3272S (RAK3172 STM32WLE5 LoRaWAN)Kilometres of range to one gateway, 2 uA sleep, runs off 2 x AA
LevelDFRobot A02YYUW IP67 ultrasonicLooks down at the water from 180 mm inside the rim; nothing in the water to foul
Water temperatureAdafruit 381 DS18B20 probeFreeze alert and a heat signal
Power2 x Energizer L91 lithium AA + Pololu U1V10F5 boost-40 C rated, about 3.6 years at 0.11 mW (est.)
Winter (WinterWatch kit)YHDC SCT-013-030 CT on an Extech 480172 line splitter + 316 stainless electrode + copper ground rod, 500 ohm shuntHeater on/off with no mains in our case; stray voltage read the way extension tests do

Mechanical

Printable CAD

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

See the CAD parts render
TroughTally printable parts, rendered from the CAD
Render of the printable parts from the actual CAD. Not yet printed or photographed.

Loading the CAD…

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

Open risks we are working on

  • Gallagher, Ranchbot and Farmo already sell trough monitors with satellite links; ours needs a gateway and LoRa coverage
  • The ultrasonic's 60 deg cone meets the wall at about 312 mm depth; readings below that are untested (T2)
  • The meter is rated for clean water: sand, freezing and lightning on the 10 m cable are field risks (T1, T4)
  • Stray-voltage readings depend on where the ground rod is driven and on wet or frozen soil; it reports a voltage, it is not an electrical inspection (T8)
  • Herd-water drops are confounded by weather, rain on pasture and moving cattle; the intake alert's false-alarm rate is unmeasured (T3)
  • No rancher interviews yet (gate G1)

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