Water Metering - Registers

Registers

There are several types of registers on water meters. A standard register normally has a dial similar to a clock, with gradations around the perimeter to indicate water usage measured by the meter, as well as a set of odometer wheels similar to that in a car. Modern registers are normally driven by a magnetic coupling between a magnet in the measuring chamber attached to the measuring element, and another attached to the bottom of the register. Gears in the register convert the motion of the measuring element to the proper usage increment for display on the sweep hand and the odometer. Many registers also have a leak detector. This is a small visible disk or hand that is geared closer to the rotation speed of the drive magnet, so that very small flows that would be visually undetectable on the regular sweep hand can be seen.

With Automatic Meter Reading, manufacturers have developed pulse or encoder registers to produce electronic output for radio transmitters, reading storage devices, and data logging devices. Pulse meters send a digital or analog electronic pulse to a recording device. Encoder registers have an electronic means for an external device to interrogate the register for either the position of the odometer wheels or a stored electronic reading. Frequent transmissions of consumption can be used to give smart meter functionality.

There are also some specialized types of registers such as meters with an LCD display instead of mechanical odometers, and registers to output data or pulses to a variety of recording and controller devices. For industrial applications, output is often 4-20 mA analog, for the recording or control of different flow rates in addition to totalization.