Water Meter

[heffneil]

Is there any electronic water meter that is available? I bought an analog one which is leaking and the place I purchased it from is no bueno and need to find a new source. Any ideas?

I would ideally tie it to the Omnipro or even if it was stand alone I would be interested. Only caveat is that it needs to be outdoor rated?

Thanks!

Neil

 

[Rupp]

Here's a recent thread on the HomeSeer message board about what is available.
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=148299&highlight=water+meters

 

[electron]

Here is a thread I started last year. I ended up buying one which has an analog gauge, but does have a dry contact output, so you can monitor the pulses with your HAI (assuming it supports counters).

 

[drozwood90]

Dan,

Link?

--Dan (not E)

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

I used a water meter for work a few years back, it looked something like THIS (don't have the records and all from that old job). I think I would get an open collector or output other than a contact closure if I did this again as I did notice some disparity between the total count and the mechanical rolling number total on the meter itself.

All this is is a magnet is placed on the gallon dial and a hall effect sensor is placed on top of the meter to 'count' each time the dial spins around.

 

[mustangcoupe]

I believe this is the thread Dan (Electron) was going to point to.

http://www.cocoontech.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=16259

 

[jlegault]

I used one of these (1 Gallon/pulse)
My link

Plugged into my Brultech power monitor, which is tied into homeseer (though need to refine so it's a counter rather than a rate monitor).

I tried hooking up to an alarm input on my elk (presumably how you would do it on the omni) and created a rule to count contact closures - but the elk is not fast enough to sense.

 

[electron]

I have the same meter jlegault just linked (or see mustangcoupe's link for more details about my setup).

I was hoping to hook it up to the M1 myself. Are you saying that even with fast polling, the M1 is still too slow? I do have an Ocelot, but the M1 was my main choice. I do like the idea of hooking it up to the Brultech unit, I guess that's another option I'll have to look into (I have one of the very first ZigBee units, not sure if I can add more inputs).

 

[jlegault]

I have the same meter jlegault just linked (or see mustangcoupe's link for more details about my setup).

I was hoping to hook it up to the M1 myself. Are you saying that even with fast polling, the M1 is still too slow? I do have an Ocelot, but the M1 was my main choice. I do like the idea of hooking it up to the Brultech unit, I guess that's another option I'll have to look into (I have one of the very first ZigBee units, not sure if I can add more inputs).

My elk maybe just under too much load, 86% rules capacity. It was intermittent in its ability to sense the contact - it happens so quickly.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

My elk maybe just under too much load, 86% rules capacity. It was intermittent in its ability to sense the contact - it happens so quickly.

Do you mean the contact closure itself is happening to quickly (i.e. will not 'stay' closed long enough to let the Elk count it) or is the flow rate so fast that the needle is spinning and accumulating counts to quickly?

Reason I ask is there may be a way to fix the first problem.

 

[felixrosbergen]

I used the same counter meter as Dan for my sprinkler setup. Unless you flow rate is super high i don't think there would be an issue with Elk or Hai missing the pulse.

My flow rate is about 7 gpm so i'm getting 7 pulses for minute. I have it hooked into my Elk, defined as a non alarm zone. On the Elk i did hook it up to the main board rather than an extender and i did set the zone to 'Fast Loop Response', but have no idea if that was really needed.

In the end i would have preferred a meter with more pulses per gallon. 7 pulses per minute is not much and i'm trying to used this info to tune in my zones (by changing nozzles with different gpm's) to match the pump capacity as close as possible to minimize pump cycling. It's pretty hard with this low resolution.

I also installed a purely analog (no output at all) pressure gauge and find myself running back and forth between lawn and basement and use that to tune it in. Increasing pressure means zone needs heads with more GPM, decreasing pressure means zone needs heads with less GPM. It all takes forever to get right....right now my pump cycles about once in 10 minutes or so..which i think is pretty good.

 

[Ira]

I must have gotten really lucky laying out my zones. I've got five zones with five to twelve heads per zone. All but one zone use Hunter PGP rotary heads. My well pump puts out 28gpm at 50psi. My system sometimes runs for four hours at a time (one zone after another), and the pressure stays constant at 50psi (once it stabilizes) and the pump runs without cycling the entire time.

 

[apostolakisl]

I used the same counter meter as Dan for my sprinkler setup. Unless you flow rate is super high i don't think there would be an issue with Elk or Hai missing the pulse.

My flow rate is about 7 gpm so i'm getting 7 pulses for minute. I have it hooked into my Elk, defined as a non alarm zone. On the Elk i did hook it up to the main board rather than an extender and i did set the zone to 'Fast Loop Response', but have no idea if that was really needed.

In the end i would have preferred a meter with more pulses per gallon. 7 pulses per minute is not much and i'm trying to used this info to tune in my zones (by changing nozzles with different gpm's) to match the pump capacity as close as possible to minimize pump cycling. It's pretty hard with this low resolution.

I also installed a purely analog (no output at all) pressure gauge and find myself running back and forth between lawn and basement and use that to tune it in. Increasing pressure means zone needs heads with more GPM, decreasing pressure means zone needs heads with less GPM. It all takes forever to get right....right now my pump cycles about once in 10 minutes or so..which i think is pretty good.

If you increase your flow rate to the point where your pump pressure can no longer maintain its set point you will not have issues with cycling.

In other words, If you have your pump set to 60 psi, increase your nozzle sizes until the pressure at the well head while running drops to something like 50.

If you go to your sprinkler manufacturer's web site, they will have a chart as to how many gpm's each nozzle will put out at a given psi. Once you get your first zone setup to run continuously at 50 psi, add up all of the output ratings from the chart at the 50psi level. Now you know your total gpm at 50 psi for your well. Then change out your nozzles on your other zones such that the sum of the nozzles equals that same gpm number.

You could do the same thing for 60 psi (just using 60 psi as an example of a well pressure setpoint). The troulbe is, you then get no margin for error. If one of your zones is a tiny bit lower on the gpm, then eventually your well will catch up and cycle. Also, if your water table goes up a little, your well will be able to produce more pressure at a given gpm and in that case it will start to cycle during your sprinkling.

 

[Ira]

At 7gpm, pipe size is probably not an issue, but with larger flow rates, you also need to make sure your pipes have sufficient capacity. I stubbed out a 1" line (about 100' long) for my irrigation system years before I actually put it in. Turns out the 1" wouldn't handle to capacity needed so I had to replace it with a 1.5" trunk line.

Another option is to install a cycle stop valve so that you don't have to worry about zone capacities at all (within reason, of course).