Good day

I can for the life not find anything that does this:

I am looking for a SMART device that I can put onto my GAS BOTTLE (19KG) to monitor flow and from that report capacity.  Is there anything like it available? 

cheers

cyber7 (aka Aubrey)

I would contact Prowalco (Gilbarco), they have a branch in CT.  They deal with fuel equipment and are the owners of Veeder Root, which is in to flow meters etc.  If they can't help, I'm sure they'll point you in the right direction.

4 hours ago, cyber7 said:

I am looking for a SMART device that I can put onto my GAS BOTTLE (19KG) to monitor flow and from that report capacity.

You are looking for a loadcell and values read with an analog reader with high precision (16-24 bit)

Edited August 3, 20232 yr by iiznh

You could also get one of these

https://www.eyegas.co.za/products/eyegas-pro

 

11 hours ago, slipx said:

You could also get one of these

https://www.eyegas.co.za/products/eyegas-pro

 

A nice idea until it goes with the old tank when the tank gets replaced. I've been toying with the idea of building an IOT scale to monitor the weight and thereby ascertaining the level.

1 hour ago, VisN said:

A nice idea until it goes with the old tank when the tank gets replaced. I've been toying with the idea of building an IOT scale to monitor the weight and thereby ascertaining the level.

 yes you need to remember to take it off. I dont have one of these BTW but have been looking at ways to monitor my gas usage. 

I have 48kg bottles so the IOT scale could be challenging. Would be great to hear how you progress.

6 minutes ago, slipx said:

 yes you need to remember to take it off. I dont have one of these BTW but have been looking at ways to monitor my gas usage. 

I have 48kg bottles so the IOT scale could be challenging. Would be great to hear how you progress.

I also have 2 x 48Kg cylinders.

I actually stopped looking for ways to do it some time back and I thought that in the interim, a good ol' analog or digital scale would work. 

16 hours ago, iiznh said:

ou are looking for a loadcell and values read with an analog reader with high precision (16-24 bit)

This video explains what I meant with this   

 

This is just about 99.9% what I was looking for

ps - I am going to build this in a bit!

Edited August 4, 20232 yr by cyber7

Let us know how it goes

21 hours ago, iiznh said:

You are looking for a loadcell and values read with an analog reader with high precision (16-24 bit)

Yes, measuring  weight is  pretty cool, as we do not rely on flow integration errors. I mean you can have the controller off during usage due to power loss. Next time you switch on,  it gives the kg usage, nothing lost. 

Would be great if members can feed back their experience re bringing up such a meter, and the level of accuracy experienced. 

And my take on face value is we dont really need a great accuracy, a percentage that is indicative of the bulk usage will be good for me.  Like 10,20,30,40 percent etc. 

 

Edited August 4, 20232 yr by BritishRacingGreen

Small / Humble gas-weighing experiment inspired by @iiznh info and video above

I have been without grid for exactly 8 days and counting. So my good old MAX7.2 , 4.6kW panels and 6kW DIY Lithium has been invaluable to say the least . I even have a portable 2kW hot water container to produce boiling water for the midday baths for up to 4 people. The solar subsystem is augmented by a gas supply for dinner cooking  , late night coffees etc, and in the case of emergency to boil some water should anyone needs to bath early morning .  The gas cooker is feed by 7KG bottle.

So last night just as my wife started the gas stove to prepare cooking , the gas bottle went empty.  That's a mini disaster.  So this morning early I  weighed the empty bottle on scale and read 7.6KG .  Refilled the bottle at Builders and weighed  14.5KG on the same scale.  close to 7KG of gas. But the noteworthy part of my post is my wife's scale , which is shown below :

.

This is exactly the same design philosophy with load cells as per the video.  The following info is printed as follows :

 

Dynamic range of 180KG with resolution of 100g over that range  . I have done some additional measurement with known weights and its pretty good. That's pretty cool . Now I don't know load cells that well , you get load cells and then you get load cells !. But this is a low cost  Chinese product , so I would like to think these load cells are on par with the low cost ones you get at Microrobotics etc. 

So I don't want to get caught running out of gas again . Yes I will invest in larger bottle as well in the future, but knowing the capacity of gas left is important when  its value of energy storage becomes critical , my experience last night refers.

So I will during the lifetime of this 7KG load monitor and read the usage from time to time and gauge it towards empty. If the electronics prove to be reliable enough  and economically enough to build , I will invest in a permanent solution.

 

 

 

I have been actively looking into this and found a couple of very interesting things:

1. https://community.home-assistant.io/t/scale-continuous-or-weight-change-sensor-sick-pet/370488/6 - I thin this is exactly what I need
2. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B091K9L7C7/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3CX4TQNUXMB0L&psc=1 - This is for 2 sets, which I am going to need to get my (1)stove - 9kg - configured and (2)geyser - 19kg - configured

For reference, I also found:

• https://www.hackster.io/uncc-megr-3171l-spring-2021-group-16/pet-food-consumption-tracker-bfe6be - pet food weight
• https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Bathroom-Scale-With-50-Kg-Load-Cells-and-H/ - another build to reference for a bathroom scale
• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/weight-scale/306828 - another weight scale reference at HA
• https://community.home-assistant.io/t/solved-weigh-kingfishers-with-hx711-any-thoughts-on-how-to-store-results/495029 - this guy weighs birds

So, with this ammo, I waiting for the Amazon delivery

So I decided to buy one of the EyeGas Pro Sensors.  My 48kg Gas bottles are outside and Wifi and Power are a challenge so BLE made more sense. The cost of going the load cell route, with ESP32 +Lithium battery works out to almost the same anyway.

The device is well made and is a re-branded Mopeka sensor. They sell a wifi bridge but its not needed as there is a mobile app and a native Home Assistant integration plus ESPHome integration. Pairing was simple and my phone picked it up immediately. 

I first tried running an ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy and the Mopeka HA integration. I found that when using the Bluetooth on the ESP32 the wifi range was really poor. Wifi and Bluetooth share the same antenna so the results were sketchy. It would not connect to my wifi network unless close to the AP (but then it was out of range of the BLE beacon). I had a spare antenna and followed the post below to solder it to the board.

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/how-to-add-an-external-antenna-to-an-esp-board/131601

This made a big difference. The native Mopeka integration only gives you the gas level in mm so I flashed the ESP32 with the ESPHome integration. You have to enable the mopeka_ble: component to get the MAC address and because the device was already positioned under my 48kg cylinder I enabled the show_sensors_without_sync: true flag. I used the CUSTOM tank type with the following ESPHome config

substitutions:
  name: esp32-bluetooth-proxy-4a27e4
  friendly_name: Bluetooth Proxy

esphome:
  name: ${name}
  name_add_mac_suffix: false
  friendly_name: ${friendly_name}

esp32:
  board: esp32dev
  framework:
    type: esp-idf

# Enable logging
logger:

# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
  encryption:
    key: Ti/Hwzqm80y5tGLvAMeW9ukDKmWCyFBUbXri/aPDl8s=

ota:

#mopeka_ble:
#  show_sensors_without_sync: true

# Enable Bluetooth Proxy Components
esp32_ble_tracker:
  scan_parameters:
    interval: 320ms
    window: 120ms
    duration: 60s
    active: true

sensor:
  - platform: mopeka_pro_check
    mac_address: CF:F1:85:61:36:17
    tank_type: CUSTOM
    custom_distance_full: 795mm
    custom_distance_empty: 10mm
    temperature:
        name: "Gas Temperature"
    level:
        name: "Gas Level"
    distance:
        name: "Gas Distance"
    battery_level:
        name: "Gas Battery"

#bluetooth_proxy:
#  active: true

# Wifi Setup
wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password
  fast_connect: true

So far it's running well. I might need to fine tune the full and empty distances to match what the app reports. At least I can monitor gas levels from my HA dashboard

Having used this for a few days I've noticed that the reported levels fluctuate based on outside temperature. The reason being the ratio of liquid to gas within the tank changes. I've added a graph that calculates the mean value. It also shows the %usage per day. 

type: custom:plotly-graph
entities:
  - entity: sensor.esp32_bluetooth_proxy_4a27e4_gas_level
    statistics: mean
    period: day
    type: bar
    texttemplate: '%{y:.1f}%'
    name: '% Daily Usage'
    filters:
      - delta
      - map_y: '-y'
  - entity: sensor.esp32_bluetooth_proxy_4a27e4_gas_level
    statistics: mean
    period: day
    line:
      width: 2
      shape: spline
    name: |
      $fn ({ ys,meta }) =>
        "Level " + "(" +ys[ys.length - 1]+"%)"
    show_value: true
hours_to_show: 7d
title: null
time_offset: 24h
config:
  scrollZoom: false

 

@slipx thanks for the great write up and config.

Do you know if such a device would work with a pure C02 cylinder?

(Have one outside which is connected to a soda stream machine in the kitchen)

I'm not sure. If its stored in liquid form then probably possible, however I suspect the sensor is configured for butane/propane gas

7 hours ago, slipx said:

I'm not sure. If its stored in liquid form then probably possible, however I suspect the sensor is configured for butane/propane gas

Thanks for the input - I've messaged them to find out.

(sorry for assuming you work for them 😜)

I have one more link of sustenance : https://github.com/markusressel/ESPHome-Smart-Scale/tree/ff224fb9237d67aeaa87694524277fb3d7fa9950

So, I followed a bit of writing and trying to get what fits my environment and needs 100%.  Following the KEG MONITOR steps I ended up with a very nice system. The Afrox supplier I use prints on the bottles the empty weight, so easy to calculate...  Go watch the videos and build it, it just works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQKEH5FpHPs&ab_channel=misperry

17 minutes ago, cyber7 said:

So, I followed a bit of writing and trying to get what fits my environment and needs 100%.  Following the KEG MONITOR steps I ended up with a very nice system. The Afrox supplier I use prints on the bottles the empty weight, so easy to calculate...  Go watch the videos and build it, it just works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQKEH5FpHPs&ab_channel=misperry

Ha, I was waiting for your response, well done old chap 👍

PS - Anyone interested in the STL for a SINGLE NodeMCU - I did design one...

On 2023/08/12 at 10:57 AM, slipx said:

So I decided to buy one of the EyeGas Pro Sensors.  My 48kg Gas bottles are outside and Wifi and Power are a challenge so BLE made more sense. The cost of going the load cell route, with ESP32 +Lithium battery works out to almost the same anyway.

The device is well made and is a re-branded Mopeka sensor. They sell a wifi bridge but its not needed as there is a mobile app and a native Home Assistant integration plus ESPHome integration. Pairing was simple and my phone picked it up immediately. 

I first tried running an ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy and the Mopeka HA integration. I found that when using the Bluetooth on the ESP32 the wifi range was really poor. Wifi and Bluetooth share the same antenna so the results were sketchy. It would not connect to my wifi network unless close to the AP (but then it was out of range of the BLE beacon). I had a spare antenna and followed the post below to solder it to the board.

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/how-to-add-an-external-antenna-to-an-esp-board/131601

This made a big difference. The native Mopeka integration only gives you the gas level in mm so I flashed the ESP32 with the ESPHome integration. You have to enable the mopeka_ble: component to get the MAC address and because the device was already positioned under my 48kg cylinder I enabled the show_sensors_without_sync: true flag. I used the CUSTOM tank type with the following ESPHome config

substitutions:
  name: esp32-bluetooth-proxy-4a27e4
  friendly_name: Bluetooth Proxy

esphome:
  name: ${name}
  name_add_mac_suffix: false
  friendly_name: ${friendly_name}

esp32:
  board: esp32dev
  framework:
    type: esp-idf

# Enable logging
logger:

# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
  encryption:
    key: Ti/Hwzqm80y5tGLvAMeW9ukDKmWCyFBUbXri/aPDl8s=

ota:

#mopeka_ble:
#  show_sensors_without_sync: true

# Enable Bluetooth Proxy Components
esp32_ble_tracker:
  scan_parameters:
    interval: 320ms
    window: 120ms
    duration: 60s
    active: true

sensor:
  - platform: mopeka_pro_check
    mac_address: CF:F1:85:61:36:17
    tank_type: CUSTOM
    custom_distance_full: 795mm
    custom_distance_empty: 10mm
    temperature:
        name: "Gas Temperature"
    level:
        name: "Gas Level"
    distance:
        name: "Gas Distance"
    battery_level:
        name: "Gas Battery"

#bluetooth_proxy:
#  active: true

# Wifi Setup
wifi:
  ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
  password: !secret wifi_password
  fast_connect: true

So far it's running well. I might need to fine tune the full and empty distances to match what the app reports. At least I can monitor gas levels from my HA dashboard

@slipx is there a way to change these to values from home assistant  

    custom_distance_full: 795mm
    custom_distance_empty: 10mm

I'm sure there is a way to do it using the ESPHome homeassistant platform and some lambda function. Why would you need to change this?

7 hours ago, slipx said:

I'm sure there is a way to do it using the ESPHome homeassistant platform and some lambda function. Why would you need to change this?

@slipx I have 2 different size bottles that I swop 9kg and a 19kg.