Fill-O-Meter – Water Measuring Flow Meter Device via MoreBeer

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Learn More… Hands on Review

Fill-O-Meter – Water Measuring Flow Meter Device BE671

 

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Reader Tip… Correct The Fill-O-Meter to Read In Gallons…

Thanks to HBF Reader Bobby for this tip!  [8 Ways to Connect with HBF]

Bobby Says…

Hey, I’ve found value from some of your reviews and tips and tricks, so figured I’d contribute back a little bit! I bought the KegLand Fill-O-Meter on the morebeer Black Friday sale, and ran into the same problems some of the reviews mention on not being able to use it in gallons mode. It turns out it’s just a math error in the firmware that’s easily corrected. The process for calibrating it isn’t really well documented either, so I’m including the process (an excerpt from my review on morebeer.com) I went through because I figure that may help others as well!

If you look at the calibration factor (K-factor), the default value is 9.4 “LPM” (the value for the K-factor is pulses per liter, not liters per minute, but the screen labels it as LPM/GPM, and the instruction manual gives some silly math formula that seems like gibberish). When you change to gallon units, the K-factor changes to 2.48. There are 3.78 liters in a gallon of water, and 9.4/3.78 is ~2.48. Since liters are in the denominator, they should have multiplied that value by 3.78, not divided (a gallon is bigger than a liter, so it will need more pulses, not less). 9.4*3.78 is 35.53, and if you change the calibration factor to that in gallons mode, you get much much closer. Unfortunately, this bug means you can’t easily switch between liters and gallons without fixing the calibration factor each time, but presumably anyone who wants to use this in gallons mode wouldn’t be switching it to liters very often.

After figuring this out, it was dispensing somewhat close to the right amount of water, but not exactly correct. I was able to dial in my calibration with a few iterations. I have the rubbermaid 1-quart and 1-gallon pitchers that get raved about on here, so I used those. I set the Fill-O-Meter to dispense 0.25 gallons (32 oz) of water and saw where it landed on my 1-quart pitcher, and adjusted my K-factor based on that. Just figure out the ratio of expected amount versus actual amount, and adjust your K-factor by that. For example, if it had dispensed 10 oz of water, your K-factor needs to adjust by (32/10) or 3.2. So multiply the K-factor by 3.2 and try again. Repeat until you’re happy with the accuracy, then try dispensing a gallon into your 1-gallon container. After two or three iterations of this, I was able to dial it in at 0.25 gallons, and it dispensed close enough to 1 gallon for me when I attempted that after.

If you want to be super exact, you could probably dispense 5 gallons into a bucket and do calculations by weight. One gallon weighs 8.34 pounds, so if you place an empty 5-gallon bucket on a scale (the same one you probably have and use for weighing your grain) and tare it, then dispense 5 gallons into the bucket, you’d expect 41.7 pounds. Take your actual value and adjust the K-factor accordingly. Remember that any inaccuracy will compound; so if you’re off by a small amount calibrating with 1 quart, when you scale that up to, say, 7.5 gallons, your inaccuracy will be 30 times as much. Dialing in your accuracy on a larger amount of water, therefore, should give you more accuracy overall.

For the price, this thing is pretty great. It takes a little bit of messing around to get it calibrated and dispensing correctly, but I feel that anyone should be able to dial it in with a few minutes of trial and error with the process I followed.

Hands on Review!

Hands on Review: Kegland Fill-O-Meter

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