P3 P0550 Water Meter

I picked these up with plans to revamp my watering system, and although it took me a while to get around to it, once I did, I enjoyed seeing my water usage with both of these.However, after the first year, I started to notice problems with one not measuring flow rate anymore, even though the battery was fine and the screen still lit up. The numbers just didn't increase.Then the other one started acting flaky, and neither one of them was recording flow, yet both still had power. (Update: that second one seems to be working again, for now, so I will put it back in the "flaky" category, not the "broken" category. The other one doesn't seem to want to play along, though.)Update #2: I am bumping this back up to five stars, because when I removed the one that wasn't working, I noticed that there was something caught in the tiny impeller blade that measures the flow, and once I cleared that out, it started working again just fine.It's not a very complex mechanism, it just has this tiny fan blade inside of it, and once it was clear, I could blow air through it and see the numbers increase. So, I once again recommend these, both are working, and if you run into any troubles, take it off and make sure you can spin the little fan inside. 👍

Works great! I use this to calculate how much water I’m adding to my black tank flush on my motorhome.So far so good.

This water flow meter is quite basic, but seems to work well in 'casual' applications where high accuracy is not required.The meter is equipped with a female 3/4" hose fitting on top and a male 3/4" hose fitting on the bottom. Actually, as some have reported elsewhere, the male thread is not tapered at all and some might view this as a problem, but I think in the majority of applications for which this unit is designed, this is an appropriate thread.The meter has two displays that can read in either gallons or liters. The display reads whole numbers to three digits, plus one decimal position. Both displays read the same number of gallons/liters that have passed through the meter since it was reset. The top display can be reset by briefly pressing the left side button, while the lower display can be reset by holding in the right side button for a few seconds. This way, you can use the top display to record the amount of water that has passed through during an episode (e.g. during one watering session of a garden), after which you press the left button and reset that display, while leaving the lower display still showing its reading. The lower display can then act as an accumulated water reading that you reset less often (this is why the meter requires you to hold the button for a longer time, to prevent inadvertent resetting).I should note that this meter does NOT show flow RATE (e.g. 'gallons per hour'). It simply shows how many gallons/liters have passed through it since it was last reset, irrespective of time. If you want to know RATE, you can allow the meter to measure water over a fixed period of time, perhaps for one minute or one hour.The meter is powered by a single CR2032 wafer battery, which can be accessed by unscrewing the water-proof rear cover; it has a slot that fits the edge of a coin to unscrew it, and an O-ring seals the meter innards. The meter is intended for outdoor use, and is water resistant against rain and splashes.It appears that a small brass pinwheel is used to do the measurement, so any debris that can get stuck around the wheel could prevent accurate measurement. It is difficult to see this part clearly, so I am not certain of the details.To save battery power, the display blanks out if no water has flowed in a while. As soon as water flows again, the display turns back on automatically.I used this meter to record gallons per minute (I reset the display, ran the water for one minute, and got the 'gpm' reading from the display) in order to do a water capacity calculation for a process that would utilize the water from a spigot in my home. It worked as expected.

I just bought 2 of these. I always have 4 in use. They will break, they're plastic. If you attach to the hose bibb and hook up a hose, they don't like the hose being jerked around. They will break! If you need a meter with a higher capacity, use the one on the city line going into your property. Bigger & stronger ones are available, they just cost more. I usually get 3 to 4 years of use from them. I think that's a fair return for what they cost.