Flow Meter Suggestions

[JackyBoy]

Hey, I'm going to have 2 pumps in my system, but technically it would be one loop. They are working in series, but not one after the other.

Can anyone suggest any flow meters to use, preferably monitorable (real word?) so that one isn't forcing more water through than the other. I've seen a couple, but I don't want to spend £100 on 2 meters!

 

[Perturabo]

I don't quite know what you mean there. If they are in a closed loop then the water can only move at one flow rate. Even if one pump was running at say 1000 rpm and the other was at 200 rpm the slower one would be driven by the faster one and they would both end up at some speed in between. If you have two pumps in one loop you are best off just putting them one after the other and treating them as a single entity.

 

[JackyBoy]

Yeah, in that case I would want to make the 1st one slower and the second one faster, but I'm not sure of the actual physics so might not matter like you say.

I thought about using it as one entity, while easier wouldn't be more efficient.

 

[Perturabo]

Well they should be running at essentially the same speed if you have the same pumps at the same voltage. So I wouldn't worry too much about it the only time there would be a discrepancy is if one failed. The reason I say put them together is it will just be simpler I would have thought and easier to get the tubing neat. You can trust me on the Physics, im a physicist

However you end up doing it one flow meter is enough.

 

[Paulie]

all the cheap flow meters are visual only, i.e. a fan spinning round so you can gauge the speed of the flow in your loop. if you want to measure the flow in real time you'll need a separate control card to interporate the data into something readable on your PC, if you want to go down this route whichever brand you go for you'll end up breaking your £100 mark easily unfortunatley

 

[JackyBoy]

Yeah, looks like it might be more hassle than it is worth. I appreciate the input though.

The reason I have them separate is because the pressure on the first block will be far greater than it would be than if I have one pump at the start then another half way through.

 

[Timeless]

I thought it didn't matter where you put the pumps in your loop. The overall pressure in the loop will be pressure pump 1 + pressure pump 2 and little influence on the flow rate like Perturabo said.

 

[JackyBoy]

Yeah, if anyone has a link to some indoor this it would be interesting to read. What I figured though was it gets the water from the res, then fires it out of the pump then it slows down after every block it goes through.

Again, I am no scientist so can't say for sure haha