It was a pleasant surprise for me to know that somebody cared enough to make this sensor for themselves. Well, this is why it is open source hardware - anybody can make it. If you did, please let me know somehow. I want to know everything - which meter you want to read, what kind of connectivity you prefer (Zigbee/WiFi/LoRa), which power source you use (battery, accu, mains power).
Since Arduino is lingua franca for all of IoT community, I've decided to write a small Arduino demo project where I would show in more details how to configure LDC2112 and use it to read the water meter.
You can find it here: https://github.com/pifactory/watermeter/tree/master/firmware/arduino_ldc2112
This is just a demo, but it gives a good starting point for your own firmware. I hope I didn't spoiled your fun discovering how this sensor works yourself :)
With this demo project I share my discovery path so far:
- LDC2112 is a 1.8V sensor and some microcontrollers require a level transformer, otherwise GPIO interrupts do not work
- How to address sensor blindness issue when the wheel mark stops just under the coil for a longer time
- How to improve reliability of the counting algorythm
After 6 months of using this sensor I have found out that:
- 2 x AAA batteries are almost empty. So, my initial thoughts that it will work for years did not come true. 6 month is not that bad too, actually. I will use IKEA rechargable batteries for the next battery round, will see how long they will last.
- Reading error is just under 0.1% - more than acceptable to m
Discussions
Become a Hackaday.io Member
Create an account to leave a comment. Already have an account? Log In.