Waste Water Gallons Per Day Logging

Aabeck

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Feb 2013
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Detroit
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I have a customer that needs to start logging their waster water system at the demand of the county.

They need to report quarterly the daily gallons discharged into the sewer system (2 totalizers involved here, 1-1/4" & 2" pump discharges) and another 2" pipe of gallons they process daily through their columns before discharged. The county also wants a quarterly average of gallons per day, and a peak daily readings for the period.

Does anyone know of networked totalizers and software to automatically log these figures? All I have found so far is manual meters, and network batch meters that need read and reset manually

The customer also would like the feature of automatic emails, either reminding to get the log and forward it to the county, or emailing the log direct to the county, if that is possible.
 
Doesn't the waste water treatment facilities in Detroit have equipment that can do at least some of what you want? Maybe someone at one of the plants can help get you what you need.

Obviously you can build your own solution with flow switches and other components but you already know that.
 
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About a decade ago I work for a battery manufacturer.

Obviously the place used alot of water, and discharged almost as much in cooling. The city wanted to know the pH of the discharge and how much.

The city came out and installed a pH monitoring device which doubled as a flow meter, with real time reporting over cell.

Needless to say, the companies water bill was alot higher for a couple of months.
 
CaspianSage,

I have been in contact with the county auditor (this comes from Wayne County, not City of Detroit Water Dep't) but so far he only knows what he wants - I have even asked for names of other companies that already get him these logs but haven't received any.

What I have seen so far are totalizers (water meters) that record gallons, one has networking capabilities that shows a report on a web page, but no software that will do the polling and actual logging - or a system for small flows (the 2" pump discharge runs about 90GPM)
 
harryting,

They are looking for a system that is networked and will log the daily totals, with an average and peak value also. Plus, I already talked to the local GF/Signet distributor (Harrington Plastics) and they say they have nothing like what is needed - Signet or other brand.

They want this done fully automatically so it doesn't rely on someone reading the values daily and manually entering them in log.
 
I have three of these in a water plant:
http://www.onicon.com/F3000.html

With a Modbus interface to a Micrologix that reads the flow rates and totalizers right out of the meters. There is a Red Lion HMI that allows the operator to view those data points. Once we add a remote access VPN it wouldn't take but a little more keyboard magic to create automatic emails.

We have investigated the Scadametrics EtherMeter for an existing sensus meter and it looks very promising but the project for it never panned out so I have not used their stuff yet:

http://www.scadametrics.com/products/products.htm

It should talk to meters that use the Sensus protocol and a handful of others and act as a protocol converter to a more PLC friendly language.
 
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THE IFM looks promising - that didn't show when I searched Google.

The Omega line won't work - I already went through their site and did an online chat with their tech supp - he finally admitted they didn't have anything that would do what the county wants.

Something like the Dwyer, which like many others has an analog output, would need a PLC to calculate the values, then have the computer get the values - both myself and the customers IT guru would like a system of 3 meters networked to the PC, then the PC emailing &/or storing the log over the Ethernet.
 
Look up Hach. They have all kinds of options and waste water is their forte’.
We use one for discharge flow and it has an RS232 interface for pulling the data right from the controller. I think they also have software that will do the same if you want a canned solution.
 
Does anyone know of networked totalizers and software to automatically log these figures? All I have found so far is manual meters, and network batch meters that need read and reset manually
I think a stand-alone Honeywell paperless recorder could do this. It might be a collection of .rtf report files generated/issued daily for the daily max and average flow rates (prints out as a single page report) and then a separate report for the monthly total value.

If a non-PLC approach is on the table, continue with rest, if not, then feel free to move on.

They need to report quarterly the daily gallons discharged into the sewer system (2 totalizers involved here, 1-1/4" & 2" pump discharges) and another 2" pipe of gallons they process daily through their columns before discharged.
1. That's three totalizers: 1-1/4", 2" line, 2nd 2" line, correct?

2. Is that three separate totals, one for each line, or one grand total, the sum of the individual line totals? Or the sum of the 1-1/4" total and 2" total and a separate 2" (2nd line) total?

The county also wants a quarterly average of gallons per day, and a peak daily readings for the period.
quarterly means once every 3 months (approximately every 92 days), correct?

>average of gallons per day
A daily total with a daily average flow rate is doable and makes sense because flow rates vary throughout the day.

Are they really asking for daily totals being averaged? If so, over what period? (that could a show stopper)

I would assume that a "maximum daily flow rate value? is what you call a "peak daily reading".

The customer also would like the feature of automatic emails, either reminding to get the log and forward it to the county, or emailing the log direct to the county, if that is possible.

All in all, email of a generated report is the best approach, in fact one should email to two recipients/destinations, where one is a back-up.
 
Danw,

1. Yes, 3 totalizers

2. It will be 2 totals - the 2 discharge pumps will be combined (2" pump & 1-1/4" pump)

3. Quarterly is what was requested - the first week of Jan, Apr, Jul & Oct.

4. The average would be of the gallons per day over the quarter, the daily log would be gallons pumped - they are not asking for a flow rate (yet)

5. Yes, they want the daily count of gallons & the average gallons per day for the quarter being reported. The peak value will be the day that quarter with the highest gallon count.

6. The customer has already said they would like 3 emails sent - 1 to the QC engineer that usually reports to the county and 2 others as backup, with the probability of emailing it directly to the county in the future if somehow 3 people still don't get it through to them.
 
I have been in contact with the county auditor (this comes from Wayne County, not City of Detroit Water Dep't) but so far he only knows what he wants - I have even asked for names of other companies that already get him these logs but haven't received any.

Consider yourself lucky... I have to log a similar thing at work and provide continuous sampling recordings. However, no one can tell me what continuous sampling means. Once a second? minute? hour? No one knows and no one can point me to the legal document that specifies continuous sampling.

In our plant, since the system is quite remote we put in a radio telemetry that gets the pulses from the flowmeter and we have a SCADA system that compiles this data into a report format that they accept as valid. No PLC involved as the radio setup has its own IO.

Also, bear in mind that they will likely require regular calibration (the Government, that is), so make a provision for that to be "easy" on your set up.
 
The Honeywell is not a fit. It has specific record generation functions but not quite to the extent needed for everaging daily totals.

Some other comments on the task:

Accuracy:
The most accurate total will be the one calculated by the flow meter and communicated digitally to the receiver (Modbus or Ethernet/IP)
The second most accurate is when the receiver counts 'total' pulses (say one pulse every hundred gallons) from the flow meter.
Third most accurate is having the receiver total a frequency output (0-5KHz = 0-max flow rate)
Least accurate is having the receiver totalize an analog flow rate signal.

Calibration:
One advantage of digital communication (Modbus or Ethernet/IP is that the there's nothing to calibrate on the receiver, leaving only periodic calibration of the flow meters.

Major magmeter vendors should have some means of "verifying" an installed magmeter eliminating the need to pull the flow tube and have it sent to a cal lab with a flow stand. Siemens does this by renting their Verificator box, which tests the tube coils and magnetic field and the converter's electronics and creates a one page pdf document that every water/waste wster plant I've been in has accepted as suitable evidence of in-situ 'calibration'.
 

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