u/Microfiche62

I will try to keep this concise - I am trying to make a unit like the Droplet, which is not available (or usable) in Canada. I would like to keep the project under $300-400 CAD.

I have zero recent experience with protocol or programming microcontrollers (though I was trained in programming MANY years ago, so I understand it and could likely figure it out) and I am not 100% clear on what is required to make a dumb meter smart.

I have a utility-provided smart Sensus iPerl water meter, but am unable to access any data from it, and the leak capabilities provided by the utility are based on a 24 hour period, which is useless for large leaks like I am trying to detect. So I am looking at clamp on ultrasonic flow meters like this which I want to connect into a Home Assistant (HA) system, as I can't find a reasonably priced smart flow meter, and I can't cut into my main water line.

From what I have determined, it sounds like my best bet would be to tie a dumb flow meter into an ESP32 board and then use that as a sensor in HA. What I want at the end of the day is the ability to send an email alert based on a flow rate that exceeds X over Y period of time. I don't really need any other data, though that would be nice as well.

What I need help with is resources to help me learn and determine how to do this, or someone to tell me that I am wasting my time.

Thanks!

First of all, I am an idiot - I was madly searching for answers to a flow meter monitoring question and found most references to that topic in this sub. I glanced "briefly" at the description and thought this was a general sub for setting up smart devices. 🙄

So I posted this - not realizing this sub was related to a whole ecosystem, which I discovered after doing more searches trying to figure out how to solve the problem and came across references to tying a flow meter to a thing called Home Assistant. Whoops!

So now I am re-phrasing my request, as I have a LOT of smart devices in the house with a LOT of different ecosystems which is a huge pain, so I am thinking Home Assistant might kill two birds with one stone?

As I mentioned in the other post, I have a Windows box running Win 11 24/7 and Raspberry Pi available, but I also have a QNAP TS-462 available that I might be able to run Home Assistant on? I am most comfortable with Windows, but I can make my way through configuring Linux when I need to. But I think the QNAP or Win 11 box might be easiest, as it sounds like I would need to add an SSD to the RaspPi anyways. So I would either do that, or buy the HA Green.

So what would I need to add to this TUF-2000b/M flow meter to that Home assistant could communicate with it and do some logging/monitoring and send out high flow rate alerts? Output specs below - I have both Wi-Fi and ethernet in the same room.

And would you suggest the HA Green and then just getting the flow meter hooked up and working before delving into connecting all my other SMART devices?

Output specs for flow meter

Thanks in advance!

I have searched Reddit etc. but haven't really seen any answers to this...

I found out this AM that the monitoring that my utility does will only trigger after a continuous flow over a set level for an entire 24 hour period. I has assumed that the period was less, and was surprised when a garden hose under pressure split and pumped water into our yard for about 16 hours without any push notification from the associated app.

The data comes from the Sensus iPerl 3/4" in the basement, downloaded through our water utility's portal.

Doesn't look like the utility will do any better than alerting after 24 hours, but I really would like to be able to see flows like the one shown below within a shorter period than that (a few hours?), especially since we travel a fair bit.

Will I have to look into an additional monitor in order to do this, or is there a way to somehow monitor the signal of the meter itself? I have a Windows server and a Raspberry Pi both running 24/7 that I could use to monitor?

https://preview.redd.it/6py2n3zfjb5h1.png?width=2200&format=png&auto=webp&s=660db6de3bb0347f415c53e72d4e79d5a7842286

Hey all! I have been roasting for a few years for personal use and gifts. I a not a fan of fruit-forward coffee, which leads me to roast a wide variety of almost exclusively washed beans, mostly to Full City to Full City+. I have been roasting for about a year (>120 x 454g roasts) on a Kaleido M6, and was using an SR800 FreshRoast for a few years before that. On the Kaleido, I have been roasting 454g batches to eliminate a variable from learning how to improve my roasts.

I have been tracking my roasts on Roastetta - this is my profile: https://www.roastetta.com/roasters/microfiche/

While I have been generally pretty happy with the results, I am also sure I could improve, but I am not 100% sure how to do that. FWIW, I use the AI generated roast feedback, and pretty consistently get longer development time suggested, so I have tried to determine how best to do that and come up wanting.

Wondering if anyone was interested in looking at my roasts on Roastetta and offering some suggestions. Thanks!

Hey all! 8mm digital conversion complete newbie. Pretty computer savvy and good with software etc. but never done much with video editing. I have a bunch of 8mm reels from my parents and want to convert to digital, but getting professionally done doesn't make sense at this point due to number of reels and not knowing what is on them. My plan is to do the conversion with the Wolverine MovieMaker Pro and review them, and then if there is any really good footage that is worth keeping, I will consider getting a better scan done of those parts - maybe splicing together a reel or two of highlights for professional scanning. I have done 3 reels so far, and one of them is pretty jittery - maybe damaged perforations? I am overscanning all the reels, and wondered if I can use the perforations as a reference to somehow stabilize the converted video in software? See attached. I have Googled a fair bit, but finding a lot of software recommendations from many years ago that I don't know if I should waste my time figuring out and getting to work or if there are better options available now - some examples are AVISYNTH and PERFPAN plugin or Virtualdub and the Deshaker plugin. I also read that Resolve had some options to stabilize 8mm scans, but couldn't figure out how. Any recommendations for (freeware preferred) software appreciated! Thanks!

sample video