Water Flow Meter

After updating the water pump and separating the water tanks (link to that blog post), we only had the one gauge and it was only on the front tank, so once switched to the second tank we had no way of monitoring the usage.

After looking at quite a few options, all that required drilling into the second water tank and running wires up the walls of the caravan that are not accessible, I decided on the Topargee Water Flow meter.

This has a small sender unit that installs in between the pump and the taps to accurately show how much water we have left. For our setup I installed it just after the pump and before the accumulator tank.

I decided to mount the display above the Microwave, when I pulled it out I discovered why there was so much dust. Some idiot at the factory drilled a 60mm hole behind it into the fridge vent duct so it was open to the dust through the fridge vents… Cool, used that to drop the cables through then sealed up with hundred mile an hour tape! (For those that don’t know, it’s called that as it’s supposed to hold the broken parts on your car in place at 100mph, yes it’s tongue in cheek).

Removing the microwave on ours was very easy, simply open the door, two screws above the door and two screws below the door. Microwave and frame slides out then unplug the cord and pull it out too.

Power for the display unit is recommended in the instructions to be provided by connecting it to the pump power cables. That way the display is only powered when the pump is turned on. The unit does have a non-volatile memory, so any settings and current levels are not lost when powered off. You simply program the total water capacity (adjust after a few tanks to the real values) then hold the reset button for a few seconds when you refill the tanks. Every time you use water after that it counts down as each litre is used.

However… on our installation the voltages at the pump are dropping low enough when the pump runs to cause the display to reboot. We will try a small rectifier/regulator first and see if that fixes the problem, if not, will have to source a different power supply.

When the display is on with backlight it draws only 8ma, backlight off only 3ma, sleep mode the display turns off completely and not sure exactly as the instructions say 8ma again which isn’t logical, so I assume its drawing almost no power. When water flows the display wakes up and lights up with a blue backlight to show the current water level in litres.

Very happy with the results, pictures tell a thousand words..