Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | I used a 2" Raven flow meter although most any pulse type flow meter could be used. The 2" model is a good match for my electric transfer pump. It is visible in my picture above.
My first model used an Ardunio Nano. The sketch shows the running total in gallons on a 4 digit 7 segment display (top of stand). The sketch uses a hardware interrupt on a GPIO pin. The Interrupt Service routine increments a running total of the interrupts which are the pulses from the flow meter. The loop divides this running total by a calibration number which converts the pulses from the flow meter into gallons and displays the result on the 4 digit display. I watch the running total and shut off my pump when the desired batch size is shown.
I have a momentary push button which zeroes out the running total of the raw counts for a new batch.
I have 3 other momentary buttons that show the calibration number and allow me to change it if necessary. Upon initial startup, the display shows a C and the current calibration number for 5 seconds and then goes to zero. I purposely made the routine to change the calibration number a bit difficult so that it doesn't get changed accidently. The calibration number is "saved" in nonvolatile memory and retrieved upon a cold start.
Later I remodeled the batcher and used an ESP 32 Dev board instead. The ESP 32 has the ability to work with ESP NOW which allows several ESP boards to communicate with each other over a limited range. I have a second ESP 32 that receives the running total from the first ESP 32 and displays it on its own large 4 digit 7 segment display. This means I can observe the running total from either display. See the picture of the large display below. It communicates wirelessly with the batcher. It can be placed anywhere reasonably close.
I could expand the sketch so that it actually controls the electric transfer pump when a certain sized batch is attained. I haven't done this since I don't feel it would be all that helpful the way I use the batcher.
Edited by tedbear 12/4/2025 10:54
 (Batcher Remote (full).jpg)
Attachments
----------------
 Batcher Remote (full).jpg (104KB - 13 downloads)
|
Equipment maintenance timer - looking for feedback
