OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hello everybody,

I've got a Raspberry Pi system-based and now I mean to monitor the energy efficiency of a thermal boiler through an ultrasonic flow meter with Doppler transducers. For this reason I bought the product TUF-2000M (take a look here for the user manual: http://www.soldgreat.com/user_manual/TUF_2000M_User_Manual.pdf) and now I’m wondering if there’s a way and how to realize the connection with the Raspberry Pi and also visualize the data directly to the emoncms.

Does anyone have idea if it is possible?

If yes, could you please help me to work it out? Any knowledge about that? Any tip?

Thank you so much in advance.

Antonio

TrystanLea's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hello Antonio

It looks like the TUF-2000M has several different output types: frequency (pulse output), current loop (that can be converted to a voltage output) and a rs232 output.

You may be able to use the frequency output with the emontx v3 pulse counter example:
https://github.com/openenergymonitor/emonTxFirmware/tree/master/emonTxV3...

Or you could use the emontx analog voltage input but will need to write arduino firmware to make that work.

Or did you want to connect directly to the raspberrypi?

 

Antonio's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hello Trystan

It doesn't seem that the TUF-2000M has something like a LED pulsing output, therefore I don't know how to use the pulse counter, is there an alternative solution by the way?

I thought I can also connect it directly to the Raspberry Pi via RS485 interface. What do I need to do that? How can I connect it to the GPIO?

Thanks

pisoni.silvano@gmail.com's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hello Antonio
I am interested in that product.
Can you tell me where you bought it? and what kind of clump?

Antonio's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Ciao Silvano,

I purchased it from China (ebay seller) with "TM-1" transducers, at this link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-TUF-2000M-TM-1-Ultrasonic-Flow-Meter-Flowmeter-DN50-DN700mm-/151206676675?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item23349ec8c3

I also purchased two other compatible transducers, the "TS-2", from another ebay seller. 

 

Robert Wall's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

I have just looked at the manual for you. It is not very clear about the physical connections. It appears that you can configure two pins in the RS232 connector to operate as an "OCT output". On Page 18 it tells you that "OCT" means Open Collector Transistor.

"The OCT circuit does not source voltage at its output. It must be connected with an
external power and pull-up resistant [resistor?] for some occasions.
When the OCT circuit is close[d], it will draw current. The maximum current shall not be
over 100mA.
Attention: the maximum voltage applied to OCT can not be over 80 volts."

I think that means you connect a resistor between 5 V (or 3.3 V) and your input pin, OCT+ to the input pin and OCT- to GND, then your input is high normally and pulses low, or you could exchange resistor and OCT connections and the input will pulse high. The second option is very much like the diagram here: http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/buildingblocks/introduction-to-pulse-c... - you connect OCT+ and OCT- where the diagram shows V+ and V-.

Antonio's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hello Silvano,

I purchased it from China (ebay seller). You can find it at this link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/TUF-2000M-TS-2-DN15-DN100mm-Ultrasonic-Flow-Heat-Module-Flow-Meter-Flowmeter-/150976915934?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2326ece9de

I have purchased 2 types of transducers: TM-1 (included in the item above) and TS-2 (from another seller)

 

Antonio's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Thank you for the advice Robert.

What I would like to do, more precisely, is just to interface the Raspberry Pi directly to the flow meter (or also a generic serial device) via RS232 or RS485, writing polling data flows on its serial bus and listening what it responses; afterwards the returned value should be handled in the same way as actually any other standard node does. I would like also to implement a sort of "shell script" (or C-written code if it fits better, I don't know...) to perform these steps. Please could you, who developed the system, give me any indications on how and where to modify the scheduled processes?

Thanks in advance

Robert Wall's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Sorry, I did not develop the system and I know very little about the RPi, so I cannot help you with this.

Olivier's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Antonio,

Are you satisfied with the measure from this system?

Thanks and sorry for the off topic

Olivier

Antonio's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Sorry Robert, when I say "who developed the system" I mainly refer to Glyn and Trystan.

I wait for their answer.

Thank you guys for your time and patience

pb66's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hi Antonio,

Hardware wise you can pick up either a USB or for the Pi, a GPIO  adapter/interface for RS485,

http://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-RS485-Converter-Adapter-Cable/dp/B005DDA6LM

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-to-RS485-USB-485-Converter-Adapter-Support-Win7-XP-Vista-Linux-Mac-OS-WinCE5-/331099811041?pt=UK_Computing_Parallel_Serial_PS_2&hash=item4d17162ce1

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12826

Software wise you will need to roll your sleeves up and create something bespoke as there isn't anything off the shelf as you guessed, I think the place to start would be a custom listener for emonHub as it is designed for custom "interfaces" to be added. It's not yet documented but the repo can be found here.

Emonhub will take care of everything else if you are able to write some python to "talk" to your device. I'm not familiar with RS485 or your device but if I can help tie things in to emonhub I will.

Take a look at a serial listener here as a starting template and have a look at http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/node/5229

Paul

Antonio's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hi Paul,

Thank you for helping.

Unfortunately I have no idea of how to write something in Python because I have never done it before. Also, I’m not familiar with programming languages in general.

As you can see from the posted picture below, I connected the TUF-2000M to my PC through a RS485/RS232 interface and I tested the device functionality with the FUJI extended communication protocol. It looks interesting, but at this point I don’t have the required skills to go on for the implementation with the Pi. For this reason I would need support  to write the specific code that allows the Pi to read and send data, coming from the flow meter, as inputs in to the Emoncms.

As I said, I’m not able to do that. Would someone be interested, kind and willing to write it or at least to give detailed directions to make it possible?

In this regard I ask: does the connection to the USB port of the Raspberry work properly (through a RS232/USB cable) or should I use the GPIO port? In this case, how should I go about this since part of the GPIO is taken by the RF12M module?

Thank you very much

Antonio

[Edit by Moderator - The picture link was incorrect. A hi-res picture is at
http://www.2shared.com/photo/NZYZpefd/WP_20140729_14_22_39_Pro.htm
- RW]

pb66's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hi Antonio

I'm not aware of any reason for the usb/rs-485 lead not to work with the Pi usb, I assume it's only data and the device takes no power from the usb. If you are using a RFM2Pi the Pi's GPIO uart will be used for that so a usb lead will probally be the only way forward.

A small benefit is since this isn't going to be an off the shelf solution, using a usb lead allows you to develop on your regular pc rather than the Pi.

I think emonHub would provide much of the structure you need and as previously stated I'm happy to help where I can, but my skills are limited (as is my time) and my knowledge of your device and rs485, non-existent so unfortunately I'm not able to do this for you without a considerable amount of dedicated research and time.

If I were doing this I would start by deciding what values i want to display and figure out what I have to "send" to device to get the response I need. This you should be able to do with a serial terminal and the manual. once you know how to get what you want from the device over a serial conn it should be easier to write something to do that.

But that's just me, I have not digested the manual nor am I experienced at this, maybe someone better versed in these arts will chip in some pointers.

Paul 

PS my anti-virus wasn't happy with your link/download so I haven't seen that I'm afraid.

Antonio's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hello again!

I opened this topic because our company would need to use ultrasonic flow meter TUF-2000M with the OEM system. I didn't make any further step since then, because of several other commitments. The problem is still finding the right connection and communication between devices in order to display data in emoncms, which clearly consists in writing code that runs everything.
For this reason, we explicitly request your support, ensuring a remuneration for each service provided.

We wait for your kind reply.

Thanks a lot!

Antonio

hatfieldr's picture

Re: OpenEnergyMonitor and Ultrasonic Flow Meter TUF-2000M

Hi Antonio

I have just purchased one of these units to measure boiler efficiency.

Have you made any progress interfacing it with raspberry Pi / emoncms?

I was planning to interface it using the the pulse output from OTC with an emonTx running a pulse sketch (This works very well with my gas meter) I suspect that interfacing directly via the RS485 port will be much more difficult but I wondered if you have made any progress?

Regards

Richard

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