Anyone care to critique... http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=10969 Sort of been thinking on this line of pump monitoring directly from the motor as opposed to a restrictive flow meter although a pump can cavitate and run without flow... Anyway This looks like a killer idea but I've a question on the power issue they discuss (is the MB fan header not 12v?) But thought this was cheap - simple - and might be reliable Whatcha' Think?
Flow meters aren't really restrictive. Given your looking at that pump, you must be on a 1/2 system in which the flow sensors for those are big enough to not cause a problem. Nexxo will confirm this as me and him both use flow meters with no problem whatsoever. Infact, i'll being using a MCP600 with a seperate flow meter soon. On the Cavitate side of things, if you go RES>PUMP>FLOW>etc I can't see any problem!
In this case the circuit doesn't need any positive power supply, pin#10 leads straight to a diode cathode and I think is only needed when switching inductive loads like a relay. Here all you need is an open-collector transistor switch, same as in most fans. It does need a ground (0V) line common to both pump ground and mobo fan header ground connected to pin#9. It seems overkill using the 8-channel ULN2803 when most any small NPN transistor would do, but it does have the necessary base resistor (and protection diode if needed) built-in, so makes for simplicity. The complicated way:
I'm just punching holes in the idea actually... (with reguard to cavitation) which any good yank buckeye would do... find the point of failure and determine best method to proceed. SO in this case I can think of a suituation where an RPM monitor would not work as expected.... cavitation - RPM but no flow. I personally have issues with an additional 2 points of leakage in my loop using a flow meter, all thoughts of restriction aside. Monitoring via the Smbus is Sweet! (MBM or whatever) Some type of alarm for the system via RPM is nice but the flow meters have similar function and an additional cool factor. A majority of my "loop" including the res is OVERHEAD as in above your head.... You all do cases I do Houses I'm actually at the point of needing a solution for monitoring flow rates but I'm hesitant to cut in a flow meter 'tho it's currently in the plan.... I've been considering how best to monitor the the loop, the motor itself is about ideal and I like the idea.... Thanks for the commentary I'm searching for a best case solution So what's everyones perfered method ... flow meters? Thanks for the thoughts and posts! Any other ideas?
