Flow meter addition

[rroblik]

(Translated from French using ChatGPT)

dear all,

I am considering improving the monitoring of my heat pump (Atlantic Extensa Duo) by adding a flow meter to calculate its coefficient of performance in real time (or almost). My question sits on the edge between plumbing and programming—apologies for that! The first point is to determine what type of flow meter would be compatible with the ESP32 already in place for BSB-LAN, and whether it would be possible to read its value using BSB-LAN via one of the custom files (without modifying the core of BSB-LAN, of course). The idea would be, for example, to publish the value at regular intervals via MQTT, perhaps using a specific command value that doesn’t exist, like 999999. I’m open to any information or articles that could help me! The second part involves the physical installation of the flow meter, but that is purely a plumbing question, so I’ll spare you that!

Thank you.

[fredlcore]

I haven't worked with flow meters before, but if you have one that has a library supported by ESP32/Arduino Due, you can simply add its #include in BSB_LAN_custom_global.h. Then do whatever initializations you need in BSB_LAN_custom_setup.h and finally do interval readings of this sensor in BSB_LAN_custom.h. Those readings, you can write into one of the twenty custom_long or custom_float array slots which will then show up in parameters 20700 and above.
If you have created a working solution, please share it here and we will add it to the libarary of custom functions.

[rroblik]

So quick answer, again! Great to read that is realistic project in the project 😆.
For the hardware part of the flow meter what thing does I have to check to be sure ? Never written black on white "Arduino compatible" of course. Such item for example is suitable ? Thanks

[fredlcore]

Well, this is just a hall sensor that sends impulses. I don't know how to drive this specific model, what voltage it requires etc, so if I were you, I'd search for examples of flow metering first (like this one here: https://my.cytron.io/tutorial/interface-water-flow-sensor-using-esp32-board), get it ready running on a standalone ESP32, and once you have it working, then proceed to integrate it into BSB-LAN.

[rroblik]

Great link I will double check that! Thanks