WATER METER READER / ESP32 APPLICATION
Flowtick Meter
Battery-free optical reader for water meters with a scanning disc: ESP32-C6 + TCRT5000L, MQTT / Home Assistant, 3D-printed cases
About this project
About this project
Old water meters carry a little half-chrome, half-black disc that spins with the flow; the vendor's pulse module is powered by a glued-in lithium cell and thrown away when it dies. This replaces it with a 3D-printed shell holding a TCRT5000L reflective sensor and a USB-powered ESP32-C6, counting every bright-dark edge as half a litre. Detection is not a plain threshold: two thresholds give hysteresis, a dwell time rejects spikes, plus a minimum gap and a fault mode where a pulled adapter or stray light stops counting and the detector resynchronises without inventing an edge. Readings survive restarts, an edge log is appended to flash, and there is a live scope, MQTT and Home Assistant discovery.
From the README
From the README
- Volume
- optical scanning disc | 0.5 L | working
- Build
- ESP-IDF firmware (C++20, PlatformIO)
Hardware
Boards: ESP32-C6
ESP32-C6. Verify the exact board revision, wiring and power requirements in the upstream build guide.
Media credit & rights
Upstream project media · rights remain with its owner · Credit: bruestel
Screenshots from the upstream README. Code and firmware were not executed. License notices are included.
View original source ↗ Copyright & removal · Reviewed
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