[Lab] ESP8266 Issues

[Adrian Jones]

Hello all,
Thanks for your suggestions.
Turns out that the baud-rate is 9600 for newer units and at this rate, and
with a stable 3.3v power supply (this little puppy sucks power!), was able
to connect it to my WiFi.
 
I am toying with the idea of making a data logger to measure the
fluctuations of the water level of our lake. As a dammed river, the water
level fluctuates depending on the amount of water in the Rivière Blanche
watershed.  I'm thinking that the design will have an ultrasonic transducer
at the top of a length of ABS pipe that is partially submerged in the water.
A disc of plastic inside the pipe floats on the surface of the water and
provides a large surface area to rebound the transducer's ping. As the water
level rises, so too does the float and the ping echo is made shorter. I plan
to add a small solar cell and set of rechargeable batteries and an RTC to
wake the software up every few minutes. The software will take a number of
readings which, when averaged, will be sent over the WiFi connection to an
online data logger. Interesting?

Regards, 

... Adrian