Water and other pulse metering

Plugins & Plugin Development General Plugin Discussion
#1

Hello

I am looking for code or an app which can count pulses and also with a factor, calculates a usage.
I have a watermeter which gives pulses and it might be possible, via some wiring perhaps, count the pulses using a fibaro binairy sensor…
maybe someone has creating something similar?

#2

I saw this thread a while ago, wanted to do the same for water and gas.

http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php?topic=26673.0
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,12145.0.html

Haven’t had the time I’m afraid.

#3

I have installed a modified gallon reading 3/4" water meter in my yard (sub-meter) so I can easily “view” my water usage real time. The meter modification consists of a reed switch that is pulsed every time by tiny magnets glued to the meter dial. I get a contact closure every time a magnet passes the reed switch. Every revolution of the dial gives me ten pulses.

For those interested there are simple photo detector circuits available the can be used to read water company “leak detector” trangles and generate pulses. This precludes the need to sub-meter like I did.

Using twisted pair now send the pulses to a inexpensive ($40) battery powered LCD 6 digit digital counter in my home. I generally try to reset the counter at the start of my billing period and log usage as the month progresses.

My mission now is to read the meter pulses wirelessly and push the data to a gateway and see usage and analysis via a database and the web.

Has anybody got suggestions on the best long term approach I should take to wirelessly link my meter rig to my gateway?

Considerations are. Mote battery life, range, hub and web software app. Can energy monitoring app(s) be used easily.

#4

I have been looking at measuring both gas and water consumption using zwave devices. I recently had a 'Eureka ’ moment and finally managed to read my gas consumption directly on vera. It is 100% accurate. Measurement is made using the Fibaro Universal Sensor and works on all meters with revolving digits.
If anybody is interested I am willing to supply construction details and the setup procedure.

1 Like
#5

Thanks @glenndower! I’m interested :slight_smile:

#6

I am also interested!

#7

Sorry for the delay.
It seems the Fibaro universal sensor has been superceded by the Fibaro implant. I have looked at the manual and it seems my method may need a slightly different circuit. I have ordered one to experiment with and will report here as soon as I can.
Thank you for your patience.