MAPUA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

INTRAMUROS, MANILA
SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL, ELECTRONICS AND
COMPUTER ENGINEERING

ELECTRONICS 3 LABORATORY

Rain Gauge

Submitted By:
Sale, Mhiko I.
Samson, Timothy Clark R.
Torres, Andre Jeffrey E.

ECE105L/B11
Group 4

Submitted To:
Engr. Febus Reidj Cruz

December 5, 2016
 ABSTRACT

A Rain Gauge is a device that collects and measures the amount of

rain that falls. This prototype measures whether the resistance pouring into
the sensor is considered as a light, or a moderate, or a heavy rain by
lighting up the LED’s connected into it. This prototype has comparator IC’s
that measures the resistances that is loaded into it. It acts as a sensor to the
Gauge. A dropper will be used and as the water drops on the sensor, 1 LED
would lip up when the resistance reaches its “Light” level, 2 LED if it reaches
the “Moderate” level, and lastly, all 3 LED will lit up when it reaches “Heavy”
level.
 OBJECTIVES

The following are the group’s objectives in doing prototype:

 To be able to apply the theories we learn in Electronics 3 Lecture and

Laboratory.

 To be able to build a prototype that can measure the resistance of the

rain that is pouring unto it.

 To be able to indicate whether the resistance pouring onto the rain

sensor is considered a light, a moderate or a heavy one.

 To be able to create and design a rain gauge using comparator IC

(UA741).
 METHODOLOGY

This design has 2 parts, the rain sensor, and the gauge itself. For
the rain sensor, grid lines were created with 0.5 mm thickness, and a 0.3
mm spacing between each lines. The more lines, and the bigger the lines,
the higher the resistance the sensor would have, and a higher resistance
for the potentiometer would be needed for the gauge.

For the gauge, we use 3 comparators, and uses an ADC type for its
structure. 50K ohms potentiometer and 1.5K ohms are set as voltage
divider for each op-amp. The potentiometers are used to adjust the
“light” of the LEDs.

When it was examined, at first, LEDs slightly lit up. We started

pouring droplets of water into the sensor, and 1 LED started to lit up,
indicating it has reached its “LIGHT” level, as we continue to drop water
into, in starts to reach its “MODERATE”, and “HEAVY” level. We observed
that, it requires much amount of water to be drop into the rain gauge for
all of the LED to light.

It can be concluded that, we have successfully created our Rain

Gauge, for we were able to measure droplets of water.
SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM

Figure 1: Schematic Diagram of the Rain Gauge

 PCB LAYOUT

Figure 2: PCB Layout of the Rain Gauge Sensor

 Figure 3: PCB Layouts of the Rain Gauge Schematic Diagram in real, actual and normal form.

TABULATED LIST OF MATERIALS

MATERIAL RATING/SPECIFICATION QUANTITY

PCB with 2
Developer
Resistors 1.5K Ω 3
Potentiometer 50K Ω 3
IC (UA741) Comparator 3
LED lights Red 3
Connecting Wires Solid 3m
Battery 9V 1