KR20230021783A - Water meter with leaking detection and lcd display with leakage alarm signal and leaked date - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a water meter with a display unit for displaying the leakage detection and the number of days of leakage. The water meter uses a method to use the flow speed of water in a duct obtained based on a basic time unit of measurement when a flow rate is measured. As such, if you use the flow speed information obtained when measuring the flow rate by the water meter, the flow speed shows the water flow status in the duct, and the flowing and stopped status of the water can be identified in the duct, and if the water flow is detected if all faucets used in a consumer' home are detected, the water leakage in an indoor pipe can be identified in real time. As such, water leakage can be identified by using the flow speed, and for providing more precise information, provided is a water meter having a display unit with additional functions to display the number of days of leakage by numbers or symbols as well as the functions to display a leakage alert, and also having a function to provide related information to a remote reading system thanks to an additional communication function.

Description

Water meter having a display unit for detecting leaks and displaying the accumulated number of days of leaks {WATER METER WITH LEAKING DETECTION AND LCD DISPLAY WITH LEAKAGE ALARM SIGNAL AND LEAKED DATE}

The present invention relates to an indoor leak detection of a water meter and a display of leak information.

The purified water at the water purification plant is connected to the water meter in each household through the waterworks pipe, and after the water meter, it is connected to the consumer's faucet such as sink, bathroom, and toilet through an indoor pipe.

Each household's monthly water consumption is determined by subtracting the previous month's water consumption by reading the number displayed on the water meter indicating the cumulative water consumption. The visit meter reading, which was to visit each home and read the signboard of the water meter to check the usage amount of the consumer, is an electronic meter with excellent measurement performance, such as a digital water meter or ultrasonic water meter equipped with a communication function using a microcomputer. As the nationwide network of wireless networks that are stabilized and enable remote meter reading such as Lora and Nb-iot is completed, it is rapidly being replaced by remote meter reading. The management system for remote meter reading can provide various additional services in addition to meter reading, which periodically reads and checks the measured values of water meters at the lower part. there is. If water usage is detected continuously without interruption for a certain period of time, it is considered that there is a leak somewhere, and a leak notification service is provided to the relevant consumer so that the leak can be checked. If the household is registered as an elderly household living alone, it is possible to provide a service to cope with expected accidents by notifying the children or neighbors and having them visit and check. For example, when reading the measured amount every hour, if a certain amount of usage per hour is continuously detected for more than 24 hours, it can be seen that the normal use state is not. Since tap water users do not generally use tap water continuously throughout the day, it is possible to guess that the faucet was not locked by mistake, the faucet was out of order, or the indoor plumbing was leaking. Currently, the leak notification information of the remote meter reading uses the information from the meter, and when the number of days in which the measured amount per hour exceeds 1 liter in the water meter passes 7 days, the leak information is transmitted to the remote meter reading system and based on that information Most of the remote meter reading management systems adopt a leak notification service to customers, and a direction for development is being sought for a more accurate leak notification service.

As described above, a water meter with a water leakage detection function displays a water leakage alarm in text or picture information on the display of the water meter when the number of days in which the measured amount exceeds 1 liter per hour passes for 7 days, and reports the water leakage information to the remote meter reading system. Then, based on that information, the remote meter reading system goes through a reconfirmation process to provide a leak notification service to the customer, and the customer who received the leak can recognize the leak only after at least 7 days have passed since the leak occurred. Also, it is not known for how long the leak occurred. The reason why the leak detection alarm is generated after the detection status continues for 7 days in a row is because of the uncertainty of information because the leak measurement method is based on a measured amount of 1 liter per hour or a predetermined measured amount. This is because if the user uses a certain amount of water every hour, it is recognized as a leak. It may be rare, but since tens of thousands of water meters are accommodated in a single remote management system, it is necessary to avoid false alarms that may occur depending on the customer's usage pattern.

In the domestic patent registration number (1021933820000 (2020.12.15.)), as a way to solve the above problems, the digital meter determines whether or not the cumulative use of more than 1L is used for 1 hour, determines whether or not water is used continuously for more than 7 days, and When the five conditions are satisfied, the customer is selected as a suspected water leak, and a function is added to check for indoor water leakage by instructing the consumer's digital meter to continuously read the meter by changing the meter reading cycle, based on the time of day when the frequency of use is the lowest. By measuring the amount of usage densely and continuously in increments of 1 to 10 minutes, if there is 0 (no use) or minimum flow rate (starting flow rate * unit time) in the unit measurement, it is confirmed that it is not a leak, and the frequency of use is the highest for two days. If the metered usage exceeds the minimum flow rate by re-inspection based on the low time zone

We are using a method to check for water leakage from rainwater users.

The above method manages the uncertain water leakage information of the water meter while changing the measurement cycle targeting only the water meter that generated the water leakage alarm signal in the remote management system and proceeding with the individual leakage confirmation process, thereby increasing the load on the system and finally determining the leakage. This will result in further delays in work. Accordingly, when a leak occurs in a consumer, a reliable leak notification is provided as soon as possible, and the consumer also checks the state of the leak through a meter installed in each home and knows how many days this state has been progressing, so that long-term leak A water meter capable of minimizing water loss and providing accurate information is required.

As a method to solve the above problem, basic information of leakage is not judged based on a certain amount of water used per hour (L), but when the water meter measures the flow rate, it uses the flow rate of water flowing through the pipe obtained from the basic time unit of measurement. use the method The digital water meter uses a method of measuring the amount of use by measuring the number of rotations of the impeller, and periodically scans the rotation sensor of the impeller to detect the rotation of the impeller. If the rotation time of the impeller is measured when the impeller rotation detection sensor is scanned, the time taken for one rotation is proportional to the flow rate, and the flow rate per hour (L/h) can be known using the time taken for one rotation of the impeller. Meters that use the method of measuring flow rate by measuring flow rate, such as ultrasonic water meters, measure the flow rate every second if the flow rate measurement unit is 1 second, multiply the cross-sectional area of the measuring pipe, and convert it to the flow rate in time units, the flow rate per hour (L/h) ) is obtained. As described above, if you use the flow rate information obtained when measuring the flow rate from the water meter, the flow rate indicates the flow state of the water in the pipe, so you can know the flow and stop state of the water in the pipe and lock all faucets used in the consumer's home. When the flow of water is detected in the status, it is possible to grasp the leak in the indoor pipe in real time. As described above, water leakage can be identified using the flow rate, and to provide more accurate information, in addition to the water leak notification alarm display of the water meter, the accumulated number of days of leakage can be displayed as numbers or symbols. Provided is a water meter having a display unit with added functions and a communication function to provide related information to a remote meter reading system.

Since the flow rate measured as above is the value measured in the minimum cycle of flow rate measurement by the water meter, if the flow rate measured by the water meter continuously occurs above a certain detection reference value, the water flowing through the water meter to the indoor pipe is not interrupted over time. It is possible to continuously determine the flow, so that the leak alarm of the water meter that occurs after 7 days in the conventional method can be confirmed as a leak in about 2 days, saving water wasted due to leaks and caused by leaks Secondary damage can be greatly reduced, and the number of days that have elapsed from the point of occurrence of such leakage is displayed on the display window of the water meter so that more accurate information can be grasped by the customer and transmitted to the remote meter reading management system for more reliable and efficient leakage management. makes it possible

1 is an example of an LCD display of a conventional water meter, 1-A is a basic pattern of the LCD display, and 1-B shows a leak alarm in an operating state.
2 shows an example of a display unit displaying a water leakage alarm and the cumulative elapsed days of water leakage as an example of a basic pattern of the LCD of the present invention.
3 is a view of the LCD display in a normal operating state without any alarm.
4 is an example of the LCD display of the water meter of the present invention showing the third day of the leakage occurrence date.

Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of the present invention is described in detail with reference to the drawings, which is intended to be described in detail so that those skilled in the art can easily practice it, and thus the technical spirit of the present invention and the scope is not limited. For the implementation of the present invention, an LCD display unit capable of displaying the leakage alarm display of 23 and 24 of FIG. 2 and the cumulative elapsed number of days of leakage of 25 is provided. Here, the leak alarm display is indicated by picture information (23, 24), but it can be replaced with text information such as 'water leak' or a recognizable display, and the number (25) indicating the cumulative elapsed number of days of leakage can also indicate the elapsed number of days. It will be no different even if a number such as a bar number display is displayed with an arbitrary symbol that can be distinguished, or it is replaced with a combination of numbers or symbols.

In the following, the criterion for determining leakage is based on the instantaneous flow rate that generates a flow rate of 1L/h per hour, but this is only a set value for explanation and can be set differently depending on the characteristics of the water meter used or the use environment.

In the impeller-type digital water meter, if the flow rate per impeller rotation is 30mL and the rotation time is 1 second, then 30mL/1Sec and 3600 x 30mL/1hour = hourly flow rate value of 108L/h, which is the hourly flow rate obtained from one impeller rotation ( L/h), which is a continuous value obtained each time the impeller rotates. In order to flow 1L per hour, the impeller rotation speed of 33.3 (1000/30) rotation per hour is required, and the time per rotation takes 108 seconds. Here, since the rotation time of the impeller of the digital water meter is proportional to the flow rate, it is irrelevant to consider the rotation time of the impeller as the flow rate. That is, it can be seen that in order to measure the amount of flow of 1 liter or more per hour, the rotation time measured per rotation must be shorter than 108 seconds. As described above, in the impeller-type digital water meter, the flow rate per hour can be calculated using the flow rate per rotation and the rotation time of the impeller and used as a judgment value for leakage, but the same result can be obtained by directly using the impeller rotation time.

When a flow rate of 1L/h or more per hour is detected, it is regarded as the starting point of a leak and the accumulated time is accumulated. If a flow rate of 1L/h or less is detected, the accumulated time is returned to 0. When the flow rate of 1L/h or less per hour is detected and the cumulative time is returned to zero, the flow rate of 1L/h or less per hour can be detected continuously N times or more. This is because the flow velocity error may appear large in a section where a very small flow rate flows.

When the cumulative time measured as above elapses 24 hours, the water leakage alarm (23, 24) display information of the water meter is displayed, the water leakage date (25) is displayed as 1 day, and when the number of days increases, the water leakage date is increased on the display When a certain amount of flow occurs continuously, it is possible to check the information on the cumulative elapsed days of leakage through the display of the water meter. In addition, when such a meter is connected to the remote meter reading system, the current occurrence information is transmitted to the remote system through a predetermined communication protocol, so the system manager provides a notification service to customers who have unconfirmed leaks, and the customers can check the leak flow rate status and Recheck and respond accordingly. At this time, the flow rate per hour

If the information is also displayed on the water meter, it is easy to know the total amount of water leakage by using it together with the information on the accumulated number of days of water leakage. , it will be possible to calculate the total amount of leaked water using this. In a meter that measures the flow rate at regular intervals, such as an ultrasonic water meter, if the diameter of the pipe is d (cm) and the measured flow rate is V (cm / H), the flow rate per hour is 3.14 * V * d² / 4 (cm / h) This gives 3.14*V*d²/4 (mL/h). Determine the minimum flow rate per hour for leak determination, and when the flow rate per hour is detected as a value greater than or equal to the value, it is regarded as the starting point of the leak, and the accumulated time is integrated. When the cumulative time is returned to 0 and the cumulative time passes 24 hours, the water leak alarm signal and the leak alarm date of the water meter are displayed as 1 day. The cumulative number of days can be checked through the water meter. In the ultrasonic meter, the criterion for determining the leakage is the flow rate value per hour, but there will be no difference even if the flow rate per hour is based on the value of the flow rate at which the flow rate is determined.

The determination of the minimum hourly flow rate of the leak determination selected as an example above will be determined differently depending on the measurement accuracy of the water meter used. The leak alarm detected as described above displays 1 day along with the leak alarm on the display of the water meter after 24 hours, or for more accurate alarm notification, the leak alarm is displayed after 48 hours and the number of leak days is displayed as 1 day It can be initiated by remote meter reading or it can be optional, and when connected by remote meter reading, leak information is provided to the remote meter reading system, and the remote system manager can provide leak notification service more quickly according to its own judgment criteria. A water meter displaying a cumulative elapsed number of days is disclosed.

10: Battery level display, 11: Alarm display unit during operation
12: display of the integrated amount of used water, 13: display of impeller rotation
20: battery level display, 21: forward flow direction display of water,
22: Display of reverse flow of water, 23, 24: Display of leak alarm
25: Displays the cumulative number of water and days of leakage 26: Displays the integrated amount of water usage
27: unit display of integrated amount, 28: communication status display.

Claims (1)

In a water meter having an LCD display that measures the amount of water passing through a certain pipe and displays the cumulative amount of water used and the alarm for leakage and the cumulative elapsed number of days of leakage
1. If the flow rate measured in the minimum time unit of measurement for measuring the flow rate is measured as a value faster than the value of the flow rate that makes up the flow rate per hour (L / h) of water judged as leak, the water meter above is at the time of leak time to calculate the leak time.
2. In the above water meter, the flow rate measured in the minimum time unit of measurement for measuring the flow rate is measured as a value later than the flow rate value that makes up the flow rate per hour (L / h) of water judged as a leak, and the value is N times (N is a value greater than 1) If it occurs, the leak time is returned to 0.
3. From the time when the water leakage time elapses a predetermined period, the LCD display unit displays the water leakage alarm display and the cumulative elapsed number of days of water leakage in which the water leakage state continuously progresses as numbers or symbols on the LCD display unit. Water meter characterized in that .

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