The optical sensor TCRT5000 works, but the results have surprised me. Just filled a bucket of water and the website shows I've used 489 liters. Somewhere this morning there's a spike of 14947 liter in a minute. Overnight I see spikes of 178 liter a minute. I'm sure there is no water used at night, the water meter has a maximum of 50 liter per minute. Something is wrong somewhere.
When I look at the sensor in action, I see a green light go on/off at every revolution of the little red/metal wheel that indicates one liter (Sensus 620). Sometimes the reflective part of the wheel stops right under the sensor, the green light stays on. When I look in syslog, I've got the idea that I might get two pulses each revolution. I just switched the constant for the sensor from 1 to 0.5 (should that have been 2 ?). Next to the wheel it says:
x0.0001 , but the liter counter (the most-right red digit of three digits) matches one revolution per liter.
I've hooked up the sensor to port 2 of my FLM02b. (D0 to +, Gnd to - )
The bucket is a good tip, looking at the blinking light is nice, but I'm looking for a way to debug this. Values like 14947 are way to big, so I'm not even close to the real water consumption.
I've started a mqtt-client to log the counter messages, that should give me a output-line per pulse (now 0.5 liter).
I've reseated the wires in the flukso, they look ok. Just filled the bucket with 5 liters and got 8 pulses. I must be doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what.
The graphs on the flukso website show periods of a constant flow of 1 liter a minute, that isn't happening according to the water meter.
So, any ideas ? Tweak the potentiometer on the sensor ? add another resistor in the power-wire ? shield the side of the optical sensor (its inside a cupboard) ? another port on the flukso ? another setting for the sensor (current clamp ports = 1, type = water, constant = 0.5) ? Just wait, the website will be ok in time ?
