Flow Meter Control

[plotto]

Hi all, new to the BCS.
Though I would offer my remedy for the Flow Meter Problem, or lack of one, for the BCS.

I have an Arduino with LCD and Keypad, cheap ebay flow meter and a 1 Channel Relay.
You enter the quantity that you require measured, eg. 20 Liters, then the device will measure the flow until the quantity entered is reached, then it activates the Relay which sends a 5v Signal to the BCS where your process then acts on eg. Shut valves or what ever.

The basic parts cost $25 off ebay

I would be interested to hear what people think?

Regards

[JonW]

Very cool. How about posting some pics?

I bought a flow meter to do the same thing for filling my kettles but never got around to implementing it.

[plotto]

Just a couple of shots of the Arduino Flow Meter.
Flow meter http://www.ebay.com/itm/G1-2-Water-Flow ... ltDomain_0
Using the UP/DOWN Keys on the board you can adjust the Volume to measure.
Shown with a 2 channel Relay, But it only uses One (its the only Relay I Had)

[Pesho77]

What are you using to power this ?

Pesh

[oakbarn]

Nice: List of all parts please and any notes!

[JonW]

Another easier way is to use a water line with a pressure regulator and a fixed orifice output. By keeping a constant pressure and output flow, you can get pretty accurate delivery by simply timing the output.

[Pesho77]

im gonna try some thing like this with an arduino with an lcd display

Ive found a code to start the read with some resets but i want to add some butons to change the total input (in to HLT) then change the out put (to M/LT) and add some valve control too but heres the code so far (with an lcd) for any one who's interested.

/**
* Water Flow Gauge
*
* Uses a hall-effect flow sensor to measure the rate of water flow and
* output it via the serial connection once per second.
*
* Copyright 2009 Jonathan Oxer <jon@oxer.com.au>
* Copyright 2009 Hugh Blemings <hugh@blemings.org>
*
* This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
* (at your option) any later version. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/
*
* www.practicalarduino.com/projects/water-flow-gauge
*/

#include <LiquidCrystal.h>
// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd(8, 9, 4, 5, 6, 7);

// Specify the pins for the two counter reset buttons and indicator LED
byte resetButtonA = 11;
byte resetButtonB = 12;
byte statusLed = 13;

byte sensorInterrupt = 0; // 0 = pin 2; 1 = pin 3
byte sensorPin = 2;

// The hall-effect flow sensor outputs approximately 4.5 pulses per second per
// litre/minute of flow.
float calibrationFactor = 4.5;

volatile byte pulseCount;

float flowRate;
unsigned int flowMilliLitres;
unsigned long totalMilliLitresA;
unsigned long totalMilliLitresB;

unsigned long oldTime;

void setup()
{
lcd.begin(16, 2);
lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
lcd.print(" ");
lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
lcd.print(" ");

// Initialize a serial connection for reporting values to the host
Serial.begin(38400);

// Set up the status LED line as an output
pinMode(statusLed, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(statusLed, HIGH); // We have an active-low LED attached

// Set up the pair of counter reset buttons and activate internal pull-up resistors
pinMode(resetButtonA, INPUT);
digitalWrite(resetButtonA, HIGH);
pinMode(resetButtonB, INPUT);
digitalWrite(resetButtonB, HIGH);

pinMode(sensorPin, INPUT);
digitalWrite(sensorPin, HIGH);

pulseCount = 0;
flowRate = 0.0;
flowMilliLitres = 0;
totalMilliLitresA = 0;
totalMilliLitresB = 0;
oldTime = 0;

// The Hall-effect sensor is connected to pin 2 which uses interrupt 0.
// Configured to trigger on a FALLING state change (transition from HIGH
// state to LOW state)
attachInterrupt(sensorInterrupt, pulseCounter, FALLING);
}

/**
* Main program loop
*/
void loop()
{
if(digitalRead(resetButtonA) == LOW)
{
totalMilliLitresA = 0;
lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
lcd.print("0L ");
}
if(digitalRead(resetButtonB) == LOW)
{
totalMilliLitresB = 0;
lcd.setCursor(8, 1);
lcd.print("0L ");
}

if( (digitalRead(resetButtonA) == LOW) || (digitalRead(resetButtonB) == LOW) )
{
digitalWrite(statusLed, LOW);
} else {
digitalWrite(statusLed, HIGH);
}

if((millis() - oldTime) > 1000) // Only process counters once per second
{
// Disable the interrupt while calculating flow rate and sending the value to
// the host
detachInterrupt(sensorInterrupt);
//lcd.setCursor(15, 0);
//lcd.print("*");

// Because this loop may not complete in exactly 1 second intervals we calculate
// the number of milliseconds that have passed since the last execution and use
// that to scale the output. We also apply the calibrationFactor to scale the output
// based on the number of pulses per second per units of measure (litres/minute in
// this case) coming from the sensor.
flowRate = ((1000.0 / (millis() - oldTime)) * pulseCount) / calibrationFactor;

// Note the time this processing pass was executed. Note that because we've
// disabled interrupts the millis() function won't actually be incrementing right
// at this point, but it will still return the value it was set to just before
// interrupts went away.
oldTime = millis();

// Divide the flow rate in litres/minute by 60 to determine how many litres have
// passed through the sensor in this 1 second interval, then multiply by 1000 to
// convert to millilitres.
flowMilliLitres = (flowRate / 60) * 1000;

// Add the millilitres passed in this second to the cumulative total
totalMilliLitresA += flowMilliLitres;
totalMilliLitresB += flowMilliLitres;

// During testing it can be useful to output the literal pulse count value so you
// can compare that and the calculated flow rate against the data sheets for the
// flow sensor. Uncomment the following two lines to display the count value.
//Serial.print(pulseCount, DEC);
//Serial.print(" ");

// Write the calculated value to the serial port. Because we want to output a
// floating point value and print() can't handle floats we have to do some trickery
// to output the whole number part, then a decimal point, then the fractional part.
unsigned int frac;

// Print the flow rate for this second in litres / minute
Serial.print(int(flowRate)); // Print the integer part of the variable
Serial.print("."); // Print the decimal point
// Determine the fractional part. The 10 multiplier gives us 1 decimal place.
frac = (flowRate - int(flowRate)) * 10;
Serial.print(frac, DEC) ; // Print the fractional part of the variable

// Print the number of litres flowed in this second
Serial.print(" "); // Output separator
Serial.print(flowMilliLitres);

// Print the cumulative total of litres flowed since starting
Serial.print(" "); // Output separator
Serial.print(totalMilliLitresA);
Serial.print(" "); // Output separator
Serial.println(totalMilliLitresB);

lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
lcd.print(" ");
lcd.setCursor(0, 0);
lcd.print("Flow: ");
if(int(flowRate) < 10)
{
lcd.print(" ");
}
lcd.print((int)flowRate); // Print the integer part of the variable
lcd.print('.'); // Print the decimal point
lcd.print(frac, DEC) ; // Print the fractional part of the variable
lcd.print(" L");
lcd.print("/min");

lcd.setCursor(0, 1);
lcd.print(int(totalMilliLitresA / 1000));
lcd.print("L");
lcd.setCursor(8, 1);
lcd.print(int(totalMilliLitresB / 1000));
lcd.print("L");

// Reset the pulse counter so we can start incrementing again
pulseCount = 0;

// Enable the interrupt again now that we've finished sending output
attachInterrupt(sensorInterrupt, pulseCounter, FALLING);
}
}

/**
* Invoked by interrupt0 once per rotation of the hall-effect sensor. Interrupt
* handlers should be kept as small as possible so they return quickly.
*/
void pulseCounter()
{
// Increment the pulse counter
pulseCount++;
}

Pesh

[Pesho77]

I should add the web site too for completness

http://www.freetronics.com/pages/jaycar ... flow-gauge

Pesh

[Pilzner]

Any update on this project?