Difference of Ultrasonic Flow Meter and Ultrasonic Water Meter

Both ultrasonic flow meters and ultrasonic water meters  utilizes ultrasonic transit-time technology to measure water flow by inline flow transducers, but both of them still have significant differences in design purposes, functions, and application scenarios.

In actual use or selection, there are still some users who do not fully understand their differences. Here are some important differences.

1.Different Pipe Size

Ultrasonic water meters usually have difference of small size or bigger size. Small size mainly refers to pipe size of DN15-DN40mm and this is often used for house. The bigger size mainly includes pipe size over DN40mm. For the convenience of unified management, water meters  have be specified with commonly used small pipe size. Many countries and areas have approved DN15mm(1/2″) and DN20mm(3/4″) as standard for house using.

Ultrasonic flow meters have no such regulation in pipe size. It can be used for wide pipe size range,e.g. from DN6mm to thousands of mm.

2. Different Power Supply

Ultrasonic water meters,especially small size water meters have been installed for plenties of houses and homes. Power supply way will be one of the first top consideration. If uses external DC/AC power, it will require plenty of money invested for wiring installing. Meanwhile, once leakage, the external power may cause secondary damage. Thus, battery powered solution with long-term working life will be an ideal solution. Ultrasonic water meters will win the market because of its ultra-low power consumption and very low price.

Ultrasonic flow meters mainly use external power supply as its main power supply. Battery powered is not their first consideration. If external power supply is not available, solar power solution has been widely used. Of course, this is one kind of low power consumption way.

And we, ABEST company, have released battery powered ultrasonic flow meters. It doesn’t require solar-power which can save cost of solar system and meanwhile, avoid of being stolen by others.  Our battery powered solution can supports clamp on, insertion and inline transducers with strong and flexible functions.

3.Different Body Structure

In order to replace traditional mechanical type water meters, ultrasonic water meters also uses inline flow transducers as its standard body structure. Such structure can make it easy and convenient to replace existing mechnical water meters.

Ultrasonic flow meters have different body structures,e.g. clamp on structure, insertion structure and inline structures. Or in order to meet special requirement, may develop different structure accordingly.

4.Signal Output 

In the past, water meters have no signal output.And require to check and record by manual news. Lately, pulse output is used for remote reading. With the rapid development of intelligence, the centralized management way has emerged. Thus, new network communication has been released and the typical and popular is Modbus(RS485) protocol. Pulse output has been gradually given up.

Ultrasonic flow meters have versatile outputs and communication. The often used mainly includes analog 4-20mA, pulse, switch way, frequency, serial port with different protocol,e.g. Modbus, Profibus,  or HART, Bacnet,etc.

5.Application

Ultrasonic water meters are mainly used to measure water flow and are widely used in urban water supply, agricultural irrigation, hydrological monitoring, and other fields. Their main users are water companies, sewage treatment plants, reservoirs, and other places.

Ultrasonic flow meters can be used to measure  flow of  liquids and gas, and are widely used in industrial automation, energy metering, environmental monitoring, and other fields. Ultrasonic flow meters are mainly used for fluid flow measurement in industrial production processes, such as petroleum, chemical, pharmaceutical and other fields.  Of course, they can replace ultrasonic water meters to use for application above.

6.Different Class and Standard 

Compared with ultrasonic flowmeters, the application of ultrasonic water meters is more simple. Its fluid is single,mainly clean water,etc, and its flow range is also relatively specified. Meanwhile, its signal output is single. Thus, its research and using is easier to reach. Meanwhile, its function is not so flexible and don’t allow users to do parameters again. Once the water meter has problem,it is very trouble to solve by local distributors.  In most of cases, the water meters have to returned to the manufacturing factory or replace a new one. This causes too  much waste.

Ultrasonic flow meters have no strict regulation. Thus, different of companies can develop the flow meters with different function. Meanwhile, in order to make the flowmeter suitable for complicated application, its function is open  and flexible.  Local distributors can deal with related problem with related technology information. This can avoid returning to factory or replacing with a new version.  This will improve technology credit of distributors and avoid waste,which will help distributors gain more market.

By comparison, ultrasonic flow meters are more adanced and have a wider application than ultrasonic water meters. If possible, should firstly select ultrasonic flow meters, especially battery powered ultrasonic flow meters have been developed for several generation by us.