What do you want from your flow meter?
Many flow meter users are looking for reasonable accuracy, long term reliability, ease of use, and remote connectivity.
Unfortunately, it is rare that these four features coexist in a single meter. Consider the following chart that covers meter type and capability.
Meter Type Accuracy Reliability Ease of Use Remote Conn. Cost
Paddle Wheel fair poor high poor low
Turbine good poor high poor med
Vortex fair high good poor low
Magnetic high high fair fair high
Orifice dp fair high high poor low
NetFlow dp good high high high med
Coriolis high high good fair high
We assume that meters with poor reliability due to moving parts, also have poor repeatability over long term usage. Meters with "high" reliability and no moving parts have high repeatability as well.
When one considers the cost of the flow meters in the list, the orifice is by far the lowest until coupled with additional equipment needed to measure the pressure difference and provide remote data transmission. The Coriolis and the Magnetic are the highest. Our NetFlow differential pressure meter falls in the middle but provides simple WiFi connection to Cloud Data and Dashboard along with local display and datalogging.
Until now customers faced a choice between expensive and complicated meters and cheap simple meters with visual only displays. Most industrial communication protocols are difficult to program and commission, unless you are an expert. NetFlow changes all that with a simple WiFi connection that most people understand since it is similar to using a smartphone.
Dial Meters have been used for many years to locally record total flow of fluids. But the moving parts are prone to getting stuck and loosing accuracy over time or with intermittent usage.
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