slappyjam

# Jan 14 2010 - 7:01 AM

Hey guys,

I just stumbled onto this project this morning. It looks like a really fun idea! I have a kegerator at home and I would love to outfit it with the kegbot. From reading through the docs and perusing the forums a bit, there seems to be some confusion about where to purchase the proper flow meter for the kegboard project.

Can someone point me to a place where I can purchase a flowmeter that complies with the project requirements? Simply googling 'flow meter' or 'vision 2000 flowmeter' doesn't really give me much.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

-slappy




mike

# Jan 15 2010 - 12:01 AM

slappyjam
Can someone point me to a place where I can purchase a flowmeter that complies with the project requirements? Simply googling 'flow meter' or 'vision 2000 flowmeter' doesn't really give me much.


Welcome aboard, slappy!

At the moment, the flowmeter with the best availability is the swissflow meter. It also happens to be among the lowest cost meters. There's on seller on ebay that has plenty of them listed for around $25.

Note that the threads are BSP and not NPT; I'm not sure if anyone has found the right fittings for this meter. I think either geoffc or kgrewohl uses these meters -- may we can get them to chime in.




geoffculp

# Jan 15 2010 - 8:01 AM

Milwaukee, WI

Hey there slappy,
So far so good with the swissflow sensor that I'm using. It performs exactly as advertised.
I'm using these fittings from US Plastic. Mike's correct they are NPT thread, but they work for me.

3/8"FNPT x 1/4"Hose ID Polypropylene Female Adapter

I did have some initial issues with a couple of slow leaks between the fittings and the flow sensor. After using some pipe thread sealant on the male threads the leaks have stopped.

Cheers!



Edited by geoffculp (Jan. 15, 2010 08:15:23)






josh.dgill

# Jan 19 2010 - 4:01 PM

Tucson

Slappy,

I just contacted SwissFlow asking where to get the fittings, and they sent them to me directly. Great company!!!

Edited by josh.dgill (Jan. 19, 2010 16:55:55)






mike

# Jan 19 2010 - 9:01 PM

josh.dgill

I just contacted SwissFlow asking where to get the fittings, and they sent them to me directly. Great company!!!


Thanks for the tip - great to know! I will polish off some parts list documentation & add this to it..




slappyjam

# Feb 19 2010 - 11:02 AM


Welcome aboard, slappy!

At the moment, the flowmeter with the best availability is the swissflow meter. It also happens to be among the lowest cost meters. There's on seller on ebay that has plenty of them listed for around $25.

Note that the threads are BSP and not NPT; I'm not sure if anyone has found the right fittings for this meter. I think either geoffc or kgrewohl uses these meters -- may we can get them to chime in.


Excellent! I found them on ebay!! Thanks guys! Now I can start ordering there rest of the stuff...

Edited by slappyjam (Feb. 19, 2010 11:30:40)






slappyjam

# Feb 19 2010 - 11:02 AM

geoffculp
Hey there slappy,
So far so good with the swissflow sensor that I'm using. It performs exactly as advertised.
I'm using these fittings from US Plastic. Mike's correct they are NPT thread, but they work for me.

3/8"FNPT x 1/4"Hose ID Polypropylene Female Adapter

I did have some initial issues with a couple of slow leaks between the fittings and the flow sensor. After using some pipe thread sealant on the male threads the leaks have stopped.

Cheers!



That's great to hear! I use teflon tape on all my fittings anyway for a nice tight seal. I'll give it a shot!




ozinnewy

# Oct 05 2010 - 11:10 PM

Newcastle - Australia

Hi all,

New brewer here and stumbled across the kegbot and in typical fashion now I need one.

I am in Australia and the biggest problem is finding a flow meter over here. Any other Aussies have any suggestions?

Also I run only windows servers here, any chance of a iis / .net version?

Thanks




mike

# Oct 05 2010 - 11:10 PM

ozinnewy
I am in Australia and the biggest problem is finding a flow meter over here. Any other Aussies have any suggestions?


Welcome aboard! I think I've seen traffic coming to kegbot.org from aussiehomebrewer.com in the past, though haven't heard of any active kegbotters there..

Not sure on a good source for the meter there. Your best bet might be to find a SF800 reseller willing to ship there. With some digging, you might be able to find a local distributor of compatible meters; I'd try beverage supply and industrial flow meter companies.

ozinnewy
Also I run only windows servers here, any chance of a iis / .net version?


Not from me, anyway; I don't use windows, which is a pretty big blocker.

Having said that, it may be possible; I found this HOWTO on getting Django going, which would be the biggest dependency:
http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/DjangoOnWindowsWithIISAndSQLServer

A friend of friend boldy proclaimed he would rewrite kegbot in C# some time ago, but I never saw anything come of it. Honestly, I don't understand the point of people rewriting kegbot just for the sake of doing so (there have been a few).. There's so many things kegbot could do, I'd so much rather have more contributions to the main project..

cheers,
mike