RE: Monitoring a new water meter...

["Neil Ball" <neilball@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just did a Google to find out that Elster meters are the new name for
Kent
meters. Back in my energy management days I had to datalog many kinds of
Kent in-line meter from 15mm upto 120mm. In their smaller domestic ranges
you need to fit a pulse unit to a port on the meter - it used to be a reed
switch that would be pulsed by a rotating magnet inside the meter. This
then
gives you a volt-free output which you can feed into your datalogger. If
you
look at the image at www.kentmeters.co.uk/en/1242.shtml you can see the
pulse module on the top left hand side of the meter. Some of the larger
meters have a similar port on the face of the meter under a circular
knockout. By the time you reach 50mm and above you can usually fit a pulse
unit between the meter body and the meter face although this means cutting
the anti-tamper tags on the meter so would have to be carried out by the
water board.



If you have a manifold type meter where the inlet & outlet are
concentric
one within the other then you need to identify your meter from the models
shown and contact Elster to find out what pulse module is required. The
Elster website also has PDFs on the different meters ranges which tell you
the litres/pulse.



Neil B.





_____

From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Kevin Hawkins
Sent: 18 June 2007 16:53
To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ukha_d] Monitoring a new water meter...



Normally they have a trailing wire hanging out of them, Mine comes from
the edge of the plastic surround where the dials are (as does my gas
one) . I suspect the bits may be in there but the units supplied
without. I don't suppose they'll appreciate you playing around that
metering area too much either. Perhaps try and find the same model on
the internet and ask the manufacturer or look at a web photo/instructions.

K

mailinglists@ <mailto:mailinglists%40varga.co.uk>
varga.co.uk wrote:
> I've been thinking about monitor water usage for a long while now
(after
> reading the BWrired.nl website a long time ago.
> I've always been a little worried as the plastic container that holds
the
> meter is in the front lawn, but was put in a little low and is always
full
> of stinking muddy water which I'm pretty sure would mix with homebrew
> electronics...
> However, last week Anglian Water turned up, dig up a chunk of the
lawn,
> and replaced the whole lot. So now I have a new meter, it's made by
Elster
> and according to markings on it has pulsed output...
> I instantly think... a few metres of cable buried just under the lawn,
> connect one end to the water meter, the other to the VIOM, a little
VIOM
> code and bingo, water meter usage graphs...
>
> My problem is I can't see how or where to connect the cable to the
meter,
> or even get the meter, err, out to have look at it...
> Has anyone else done this already or have any hints?
>
> Lee
>
>



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