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Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Thursday 24 March 2016 21:03
by rednas
Hello,
I would like to read my gas meter. I've seen meters measured with reed switches or with photo diodes, however my gas meter seems not to have these possibilities. I actually cannot find anything to read it.
See the pictures for a similar gas meter (pictures are from Tweakers user Raven):
Does someone know if it is possible to read the meter?
Thanks in advance.
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Thursday 24 March 2016 21:31
by AirbusRichie
I have a similar meter and I just finish building a sensor for this based on an arduino nano with a hmc5883l magnetometer. Google is your friend, there are a few well documented projects like this.
I didn't post anything on this yet, since its still a work in progress. What I am doing is converting the "top" and the "bottom" of a wave that is the output of the magnetometer to a "pulse". I then use this to output over USB (serial) an emulated S0PCM. One pulse is exacly 0.001 m3.
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Thursday 24 March 2016 21:37
by rednas
I know Google is my friend and know many people use a reed switch for reading it but there is no magnet present in my meter. I tried a reed switch in front of the last digit, but it didn't work.
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Thursday 24 March 2016 22:01
by AirbusRichie
This is why I am using an magentometer and not a reed switch. That didn't work for me either.
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Thursday 24 March 2016 22:04
by RidingTheFlow
rednas wrote:I know Google is my friend and know many people use a reed switch for reading it but there is no magnet present in my meter. I tried a reed switch in front of the last digit, but it didn't work.
Are you sure there is no magnet? Your reed switch may be not sensitive enough - a lot of them have pretty high activation requirement. Also magnet sometimes is not on digit, but actually _after_ it (it actually makes sense since disk with digits has no space around it).
I have a meter which other people said they cant read using reed switches, but I just went on Farnell and bought specific reed switch with low AT activation force, and it did work perfectly.
Try using your phone with Sensors app and check phone's magnetometer output when meter rotates - magnetometer will pick it for sure if there is a magnet here.
Also this round hole near "m3" is suspicious - there may be something optical-related in here.
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Monday 28 November 2016 2:14
by dpcreel
AirbusRichie - any update on using the magnetometer to measure the gas meter? I was able to get it to read the meter but am stuck at converting the data to a useful pulse.
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Wednesday 15 February 2017 14:10
by JERO79
I have the same gas meter and wish to import the data into Domoticz. Has anybody succeeded in this?
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Wednesday 15 February 2017 14:34
by emme
I'm using northQ gas reader...
but with such meter you can use try to give a look to ESP8266 with magnets (reed) which can be somthing like:
https://www.mysensors.org/build/binary
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Thursday 16 February 2017 8:09
by bjacobse
Have you tried the TRCT5000? it is maybe working for you to sense the white lines on black background on the last dial
https://www.google.dk/search?q=tcrt5000 ... TWAbg48ZeM:
viewtopic.php?t=2157&start=20#p29305
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Saturday 01 April 2017 16:06
by dpcreel
I was able to get a gas meter reading using a magnetometer. I had to use a magnetometer because my gas meter is outside and there are no viable magnets to use for a reed switch or hall sensor. The gas company would not let me cover up the dials with anything. So I resorted to using a magnetometer to measure the minute variations in the magnetic field caused by the movement of the bellows in the meter. So far so good.
https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/6125/ ... gnetometer
Re: Possibility of reading gas meter
Posted: Saturday 13 May 2017 19:49
by zboblamont
No idea if it works as not yet got nodes and controller set up. There seem to be many variants of the G4 meter, the Elster version (branded by local supplier) I have uses this type
http://store.meterprovida.com/store/cat ... ur002.aspx
This meter has a rebate into which the reed switch fits, the lug on the right links with an eye flange to which the gas utility usually fit a seal