Flow Meter

[bryanmee]

I connected an Amco “1 C700 water meter with 1 pulse per gallon to my OsPi with firmware 2.16. The volume of water being logged is greater the actual amount the the meter’s dials indicate. I am seeing 1 volt of noise on the output of the LM2596 supply (see attached) and think it is causing false pulses. Ray how clean do you expect the output of the LM2596 supply should be?

Attachments:

1. 

   ospiNoise.jpg
   

[Ray]

1 volt noise is quite dramatic. Let me do some tests today and I will get back to you. For sanity checking: if you disconnect the sensor terminal or the sensor wires, does it still report flow rate?

[bryanmee]

Thanks for the sanity suggestion. With the sensor disconnected I saw no flow. After doing some more checking I found if I connect the OsPi ground to earth ground I do not see any false pulses. I am still investigating but the switcher does not look like the cause of my problem. Thanks

[bryanmee]

I still have an accuracy issue on some zones. I disconnected the Raspberry Pi and attached a resistive load to the 5 volt output from the OpenSprinklerPi V1.3 board. The load draws about 150ma and I see the one plus volt noise from the switcher. Is this normal?

[Ray]

It could be a problem with the switching regulator. My suggestion is to submit a support ticket and we can arrange for you to ship it back to us so that we can check the issue and replace the switching regulator to see if this solves the problem.

[Author]

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