HowTo: ESPEasy – Connect VL53L0X / VL53L1X distance sensor to the ESP8266 / ESP32 and read its data

I recently stumbled across the VL53L0X and VL53L1X TOF distance sensors. These sensors can determine distances with millimeter accuracy using a laser. In addition, they have a range of up to 4m (VL53L1X9 or 2m (VL54L0X). I found the sensors very interesting and of course I ordered a few directly. It doesn’t hurt to have something practical in stock. 🙂

After they had arrived and I played around with it, it struck me that it could also be used to detect the level of my coffee cup. A quick test at the sink and a further test at the rain barrel then showed that this also worked with clear liquids. And that gave me the first idea for practical use: a level sensor for the rain barrel.

I had never dared to do so because I found previous systems either too expensive, complicated or inaccurate. But now it was time.

I described what you need and how you can proceed when building your own laser level sensor in the following article. 🙂

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Safety instructions

I know the following hints are always a bit annoying and seem unnecessary. But unfortunately, many people who knew it "better" from carelessness lost their eyes, fingers or other things or hurt themselves. In comparison, a loss of data is almost not worth mentioning, but even these can be really annoying. Therefore, please take five minutes to read the safety instructions. Even the coolest project is worth no injury or other annoyance. https://www.nerdiy.de/en/sicherheitshinweise/

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Hints for our lovely english readers: Basically, many of the articles on Nerdiy.de are translations from the original german articles. Therefore, it may happen here and there that some illustrations are not available in english and that some translations are weird/strange/full of mistakes or generally totaly wrong. So if you find some obvious (or also not obvious) mistakes don't hesitate to leave us a hint about that in the comment section. 
Also please don't get confused, that instead of a "dot" often a "comma" is used as decimal separator. 🙂

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Requirements

Helpful articles:
Before you start this article, you should have worked on the basics of soldering. You can find information on this in the following article.

• Electronics – My friend the soldering iron

Tools required:

In the following list you will find all the tools you need to implement this article.

Required material:

In the following list you will find all the parts you need to implement this article.

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Collect required parts

You need the parts shown below to build the level sensor.

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Print the required 3D parts

Download all required STL files:

• ESPEasy – Waterlevel sensor with VL53L0X/VL53L1X

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Cut threads in the housing

So that the USB cable for the power supply can also be inserted watertight into the housing, you should use a cable gland. This is the only way to permanently prevent water from penetrating the housing over time.

To be able to mount this cable gland in the housing, a thread must first be cut into the housing. The cutting of internal threads is also explained in detail in the article Mechanics – Cut internal thread.

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Prepare the distance sensor

Now it is time to prepare to install the actual sensor. This communicates with the microcontroller via the I2C bus and therefore requires a total of four lines.

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Connect the distance sensor to the Wemos D1 Mini

Now of course the sensor still has to be connected to the microcontroller.

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Install the distance sensor

The unit consisting of microcontroller and sensor must of course now be installed in the housing in a watertight manner.

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Install the Wemos D1 Mini and insert the USB cable into the housing so that it is watertight

After the sensor is installed in the right place, all other components must now be stowed watertight in the housing.

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Seal the housing watertight

The almost final step: Now that all components have been installed in the housing, you must also seal it watertight.

When tightening the screws, you should always tighten the opposite screws. For example, first at the top right, then at the bottom left, then at the top left and finally at the bottom right.

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Programming the firmware

ESPEasy

In principle, you have many options with the firmware. You can equip the ESP8266 installed on the Wemos D1 Mini with your own firmware, but you can also use the popular firmware “Tasmota” or “ESPEasy”.

Personally, I find ESPEasy the most personable because you have more setting options here. For one or the other, however, this is exactly an argument to prefer the Tasmota firmware, which in my opinion comes with a little more “simply functioning” default settings. Currently (28.05.2020) there is also the problem that the plugin for ESPEasy does not work reliably. That’s why I currently recommend using the Tasmota firmware if you don’t want to install your own firmware. 🙂The ESPEasy plug-in for the VL53L0X now works quite reliably. Instructions on how to configure this plugin can be found in the following paragraph.

How you can read out the VL53L0X sensor with ESPEasy and the appropriate plugin is described in the following article.

• ESPEasy – Connect VL53L0X / VL53L1X distance sensor to the ESP8266 / ESP32 and read its data

Tasmota

Unfortunately, the sensor is not included in any of the regular automatic builds of the Tasmota firmware. That means you have to compile the firmware yourself after you have activated the use of the sensor.

To save you this step, I have prepared the compiled .bin file and uploaded it into the Nerdiy.de-GitHub. You can find them under the following link: https://github.com/Nerdiyde/tasmotaBuilds/blob/master/tasmota_27052020_incl_vl53l0x.ino.bin

How you can flash.-Bin files on an ESP8266 is described in the article ESP8266 – with the “Esptool” flashing .bin files under Windows.

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Assembly suggestion

Here is a small assembly suggestion how you could mount the sensor on a rain barrel, for example.

You should definitely make sure that the sensor is not overwashed if the rain barrel overflows. Although the sensor is very well protected against splashing water, it is better not to immerse it in water. 🙂

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Evaluation in NodeRed

It is one thing to measure the level of your rain barrel. Another is to receive this data, prepare it and, if necessary, convert it.

Because so far you only get a distance from your sensor. This is not really a volume that you actually want to measure. Therefore the water level still has to be converted into a volume. This depends on the shape and dimensions of your rain barrel and is not always easy to calculate.

In the future I will add flows in this part that will simplify the conversion of these values. 🙂

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Additional information

• https://www.hackster.io/team-protocentral/liquid-level-sensing-using-a-laser-tof-sensor-d04232
• http://forum.creationx.de/forum/index.php?thread/955-f%C3%BCllstand-%C3%B6l-tank-messen/&pageNo=3
• https://www.electronicspecifier.de/micros/flugzeitsensor-der-n-chsten-generation-von-stmicroelectronics
• https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_VL53L0X

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Have fun with the project

I hope everything worked as described. If not or you have any other questions or suggestions, please let me know in the comments. Also, ideas for new projects are always welcome. 🙂

P.S. Many of these projects - especially the hardware projects - cost a lot of time and money. Of course I do this because I enjoy it, but if you appreciate it that I share these information with you, I would be happy about a small donation to the coffee box. 🙂