Suggestions for pulse counter for water meter

[ricks]

Hoping someone may be able to help me with this one. Now that I have Brultech tracking my electical usage I want to also track my water usage. My water company uses a meter that electronically tracks each gallon used with a pulse. My goal is to get this pulse into my HAI panel where I can track usage with HA software.

The specs for the meter are:
Contact Rating: 4 Watt
Max Voltage: 24 VDC
Max Current: 0.01 A
Max Contact Resistance: 0.2 ohm
Capacitance: 0.2 pF

Anyone know what I would need to get these pulses into my HAI panel?

Thanks,
Rick

 

[WayneW]

I would assume you could just hook the contacts up to an input zone, assuming the water company doesn't already have something connected there. Then you just need a way to count the closures and convert that count to gallons.

 

[Boomer]

You might want to consider putting a separate meter in instead of fooling with the water company's meter. They may consider it tampering, especially if your usage to them gets corrupted. I have a Hays M series water flow meter installed next to the water company's meter. It has a dry contact that sends 10 pulses per gallon so you have a fairly accurate measure of water flow. Check out Hays Fluid Controls. I purchased mine through Graingers.

Thanks
Boomer


BSR Edit: Fixed link.

 

[ricks]

WayneN and Boomer,

Thanks for the feedback. Boomer, you may have a point. I'm still waiting for the town's electric department to say something when they see that I've cut the tag to remove the meter to install the Brultech. Hopefully whatever they do to me will not be as bad as getting fried in the panel.

I only have about 10 horizontal feet of 1" between my water company's meter and the house plumbing. Already I have a monitored shutoff valve and a water filter. Real estate on that pipe is getting scarce so that's why I figured I'd run off of the town's meter.

Do you connect the Hayes to a security panel as WayneW mentioned? If so, do you recall if you used the ME - Solid State 6-24 VDC or the Reed Switch - Dry Contact closure version of the M Series?

Thanks,
Rick

 

[Boomer]

I have the reed switch version. I have it connected directly to the ELK panel to a Non-Alarm zone set to fast response. Every pulse of the meter faults the zone. In the rules I have a counter that is incremented by 1 with every pulse. I have a second counter (gallons) that is incremented by 1 every time the first counter hits 10. The first counter is then reset to 0. In my setup I also have a Water Cop valve installed. My main rule is that if the system is armed away, thus no one is in the house, if more that 2 gallons flow within an hour the main water supply is shut off due to a possible leak. This allows enough flow for ice makers, etc.

Also, my water piping is 3/4" on the inside of the water company's meter. I just used appropriate fittings to connect the Hays meter.

Hope this is helpful.
Boomer

 

[personalt]

looks like grainger is closing out those meters.. $181 vs $250 'while supplies last'

I have the reed switch version. I have it connected directly to the ELK panel to a Non-Alarm zone set to fast response. Every pulse of the meter faults the zone. In the rules I have a counter that is incremented by 1 with every pulse. I have a second counter (gallons) that is incremented by 1 every time the first counter hits 10. The first counter is then reset to 0. In my setup I also have a Water Cop valve installed. My main rule is that if the system is armed away, thus no one is in the house, if more that 2 gallons flow within an hour the main water supply is shut off due to a possible leak. This allows enough flow for ice makers, etc.

Also, my water piping is 3/4" on the inside of the water company's meter. I just used appropriate fittings to connect the Hays meter.

Hope this is helpful.
Boomer

 

[WayneW]

looks like grainger is closing out those meters.. $181 vs $250 'while supplies last'

Here is the $99 option for 3/4" http://www.jerman.com/dljsjmeters.html