The Implementation and Calibration a Low Cost Propeller Type Current Meter in the Laboratory

Abstrak

Propeller type current meter or horizontal-axis rotor meters is an equipment that is used to estimate flow velocity in various fluids such as air, water, and oil. Several standard propeller-type current meters had been produced by companies are to cater to the demands, but these products are costly and limited in accuracy of the real-time during data recording. The design and implementation of the proposed propeller-type current meter are for river or stream application and thus, the Velocity-area method was used. The current meter was implemented by manipulating mechanical performance which is more reliable and stable in measurement. The propeller type current meters are compact with Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC) that is embedded in the microprocessor board for data processing. Meanwhile, the Real-Time Clock (RTC) module is used to maintain the accuracy of the real-time during data recording via Security Digital (SD) card and rechargeable Li-Po battery with DC/DC converter for power supply. The cost to build the propeller-type current meter is 44.95% cheaper than a commercial current meter. The testing and calibration process were conducted at the laboratory. The propeller-type current meter is tested in an 8-meter-long Flow Channel that varied from 0.3 m/s to 0.6 m/s and the result shows an average error is 1.0%. Therefore, the device shows an acceptable error and extremely useful to reduce research or operation costs.