I use a RIBU1S relay in a box to "monitor" the pump. I tapped into one of the hot wires coming off of the pump side of the pump controller. That wire plus a neutral and ground go to a wall outlet mounted next to the pump controller. I have a wall wart plugged into the wall outlet that controls the coil in the RIBU1S. Note that the RIBU1S coil allows 120Vac so I could have gone directly from the controller to the RIBU1S, but I like working with low voltage.
On the contact side of the RIBU1S, I have a state/event logger from onsetcomp.com (the U11-01). The U11 logs state changes (dry contact opens/closes) as long as the new state lasts at least a second. Since my well will stay on for close to a minute whenever it comes on, the one second requirement is not a problem. Also, the U11 can track up to three separate state change devices/relays, so this particular U11 tracks well pump on/off, irrigation master valve on/off, and water softener regen. I have another U11 that logs things dealing with my electrical system.
The U11 data logger is a USB device. I haven't set up the communications side of things yet, but I have prototyped it and it works. The U11 works with a device called a USB server by Keyspan (part of Tripp-Lite). The USB server is used to communicate with the data logger via a LAN. So the USB server plugs into the LAN on one side, and has four USB ports. Once the data logger is on the LAN, I can use the onsetcomp.com software to get the data from the logger to my PC via a "readout", which is basically just dumping the data from the data logger to the PC. The software has various options for graphing the data, automatic readouts, etc. It also has alarm/event notification capabilities but that part doesn't support the U11, e.g., you can't trigger an alarm if the data logger sees a state change. For me, that's the biggest downside of the software. To get around it, I will probably do frequent readouts to a CSV file, then interrogate the file with CQC. The alarm/event notification stuff works with most of their other sensors, e.g., temp, humidity, voltage, current, etc. I have spoken with the manufacturer about enhancing the software in a couple of relatively easy ways that would make their loggers/software great for HA stuff, but they haven't committed to any of the enhancements. I don't think they see HA as a big market because they haven't heard such requirements from HA folks. I just got a sensor from them yesterday that will be used to monitor the voltage of the battery used by a standby genset. In this case, I will be able to get an email notification when the battery drops too low. I will use CQC to process the email and trigger an alarm.
I still like the loggers. They are small (half the size of a deck of cards), easy to use, seem to be very reliable, relatively cheap (around $40 per sensor if you buy a multichannel logger), and I like the idea of a self-contained device doing that kind of stuff.
The long term goal is to feed everything into CQC and display it visually like an industrial process control monitor with animated graphics to show the pump running, water flowing, etc. I've got a couple of flow switches to monitor water flow on/off thru a couple of main pipes (one to the house, one to the irrigation system). I've built a box that contains a pump protector that will shut off power to the pump if rapid cycling or current problems are detected. The box also contains a pump relay that will shut off the pump if a future ELK M1 detects a water leak. I have additional "monitor relays in the box that detect when the pump protector or leak relay shuts off power, or if the circuit breaker trips. I hope to have a few pressure sensors somewhere in the system, but I haven't found a reasonable solution for that yet. If I can get a graphics artist to do the animated PNG files on the cheap, it should really look good. I should be able to detect things like the pump running but no water being used (not good, unless it's just topping off the pressure tank), power shut off from the circuit breaker, pump protector, or leak detector, water softener regens, etc.
Ira
