Tim Robinson wanted to know how much energy his household was spending on gas and electricity. How convenient was it that the gas meter that was installed has a rotating magnet! A switch that is commonly used for door alarm switches looks like the perfect match. Have a look at the project site for some details of his gas and electrical monitoring solution.
"The goal was to find a cheap way of constant monitoring the consumption as a precursor to trying to reduce it, in order to to do our bit for the environment and our wallet too. The gas meter was changed recently, and the index has a little rotating magnet on the thousandths of a cubic metre dial. A little reed switch is mounted under the dial – one operation for each 0.01 m3"
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Very interesting. Our gas company uses electronic meters with a wi-fi type of connection. The best I could do is run out every day or so to read the numbers and log them manually.
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Now what happens if, say, you stick a big neodymium magnet to this meter ? ^^
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Vivi
I found the type approval documentation for the gas meter on the web. Part of the approval certification was a test in the presence of magnets!
See
http://epr.ofgem.gov.uk/document_fetch.php?documentid=12953
for all the gorey details!
Rgds
Tim