What Is It?

Yup it�s a Whirlpool Duet Flow meter. What it does is it measures the amount of water flowing from the water valve into the dispensers and down into the rotating drum. The way it works is there is a little wheel inside the sensor, as water passes over the wheel it turns, the higher the pressure the faster the wheel turns. 815 revolutions of this wheel equals one gallon of water. I�ve put it through some thorough testing and to my amazement it is extremely accurate. With each full turn of the wheel it opens and closes a simple switch.

As you can see in the front view of the picture, I broke away part of the plastic so I get reach the terminals. I soldered on two extra wires and attached a terminal block on the front side. As most of you have guessed it is going into my Super Unimatic washer.

The Super Unimatic has a metered wash fill now, but still has a timed rinse fill. I meter the wash fill by using a recirculation pump pressure switch. When the solid tub is full of water it overflows causing the recirculation pump to come up to full pressure, this trips a pressure switch and alerts the computer that the tub is full and to begin the wash cycle.

But for the rinse I�m not using any recirculation from the outer tub because I do not want to return the suds from the wash back into the rinse water in the wash tub. That keeps the beauty of solid basket washers in tact, their superior rinsing ability.

So now I can measure the rinse fill very accurately as well. The PC connected to the washer will count each revolution of the flow meter wheel and start the overflow rinse when the wash tub is full and just about to overflow. I can also use this for small load washes where the tub will not be full and overflowing with recirculation. I will be able to have a small load selector on the computer screen that will allow me to select anywhere between 1 and 11 gallons of water! This is the first enhancement of many to come for Super Unimatic 2.0 this summer


Forum Topics & Rules Manuals & Literature	New users Click-here to sign-up

Post# 208134 5/3/2007 at 22:41 (6,201 days old) by unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)
Checkrate/Likes Anyone care to guess what this is and what it's going to be used for?

Post# 208135 , Reply# 1 5/3/2007 at 22:46 (6,201 days old) by toggleswitch (New York City, NY)
Checkrate/Likes *Artficial heart? I thougth you ALREADY had a heart........* Is is a pump or a sensor?

Post# 208136 , Reply# 2 5/3/2007 at 22:46 (6,201 days old) by gadgetgary (Bristol,CT)
Checkrate/Likes A dishwasher pump?

Post# 208137 , Reply# 3 5/3/2007 at 22:47 (6,201 days old) by toggleswitch (New York City, NY)
Checkrate/Likes or maybe a water-pressure sensing switch?

Post# 208162 , Reply# 4 5/4/2007 at 03:09 (6,200 days old) by tolivac (greenville nc)
Checkrate/Likes Water or liquid flow sensor?-IE in liters or gallons per min ute-We have a similar device on a dummy load here.

Post# 208163 , Reply# 5 5/4/2007 at 03:57 (6,200 days old) by sudsman ()
Checkrate/Likes *Is it* a valve for a flush in dispenser

Post# 208187 , Reply# 6 5/4/2007 at 08:34 (6,200 days old) by veg-o-matic (Baltimore, Hon!)
Checkrate/Likes A white plastic thing?

Post# 208188 , Reply# 7 5/4/2007 at 08:37 (6,200 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)
Checkrate/Likes Yup, a flow-meter from a Whirlpool Duet washer with a terminal block strapped to it... What it's for - is going to be fun!

Post# 208196 , Reply# 8 5/4/2007 at 09:11 (6,200 days old) by partscounterman (Cortez, Colorado)
Checkrate/Likes I knew right away as the flowmeter for my Hettie has been sitting out in the open all week-but Greg beat me to it! Got my warranty parts from Sears yesterday afternoon, so will be able to put the darned thing back together this weekend.

Post# 208197 , Reply# 9 5/4/2007 at 09:24 (6,200 days old) by partscounterman (Cortez, Colorado)
Checkrate/Likes *The more important question is...* What are you going to DO with it Robert? Will this soon be a part of your Super-Unimatic? I'm excited already!

Post# 208199 , Reply# 10 5/4/2007 at 09:27 (6,200 days old) by peterh770 (Marietta, GA)
Checkrate/Likes This will be used to sense a suds-lock condition, whereby a suds knock-down sequence will be initiated... ?????

Post# 208206 , Reply# 12 5/4/2007 at 11:25 (6,200 days old) by tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes Jason held one end of this meter to the vacuum cleaner hose and made a seal around it. The flow meter started whirring louder and louder until the bearings melted and the fun was over. If you just blow through one end of it, it makes a whistle-like noise.

Post# 208302 , Reply# 13 5/5/2007 at 01:07 (6,200 days old) by tolivac (greenville nc)
Checkrate/Likes The flow meter in our transmitter dummy load works the same way-water flowing past a boat propeller like impeller connected to a counter circuit in the dummy load computer-it uses the flow meter along with temp rise of the coolant-electrolyte to calculate how much power the transmitter running into the load is putting out.We use this load to test transmitters without sending a signal out as would an antenna.The unit we have is brass-imported from England and VERY expensive-it does sort of resemble the flow meter from the Duet washer-but is much larger-has to handle more water flow.Also the flow meter in the load has to be sent to the factory in England to be calibrated.

Post# 208204 , Reply# 11 5/4/2007 at 10:59 (6,200 days old) by unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)
Checkrate/Likes Yup it�s a Whirlpool Duet Flow meter. What it does is it measures the amount of water flowing from the water valve into the dispensers and down into the rotating drum. The way it works is there is a little wheel inside the sensor, as water passes over the wheel it turns, the higher the pressure the faster the wheel turns. 815 revolutions of this wheel equals one gallon of water. I�ve put it through some thorough testing and to my amazement it is extremely accurate. With each full turn of the wheel it opens and closes a simple switch. As you can see in the front view of the picture, I broke away part of the plastic so I get reach the terminals. I soldered on two extra wires and attached a terminal block on the front side. As most of you have guessed it is going into my Super Unimatic washer. The Super Unimatic has a metered wash fill now, but still has a timed rinse fill. I meter the wash fill by using a recirculation pump pressure switch. When the solid tub is full of water it overflows causing the recirculation pump to come up to full pressure, this trips a pressure switch and alerts the computer that the tub is full and to begin the wash cycle. But for the rinse I�m not using any recirculation from the outer tub because I do not want to return the suds from the wash back into the rinse water in the wash tub. That keeps the beauty of solid basket washers in tact, their superior rinsing ability. So now I can measure the rinse fill very accurately as well. The PC connected to the washer will count each revolution of the flow meter wheel and start the overflow rinse when the wash tub is full and just about to overflow. I can also use this for small load washes where the tub will not be full and overflowing with recirculation. I will be able to have a small load selector on the computer screen that will allow me to select anywhere between 1 and 11 gallons of water! This is the first enhancement of many to come for Super Unimatic 2.0 this summer

Post# 208335 , Reply# 14 5/5/2007 at 10:01 (6,199 days old) by laundryshark (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
Checkrate/Likes *Video Demo Download?* *Might there eventually be a video demo download available for us to add to our growing computer file collections? grins--Laundry Shark*

Post# 208356 , Reply# 15 5/5/2007 at 13:19 (6,199 days old) by unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)
Checkrate/Likes I did make a Video of the Super Unimatic a while back, it's out there somewhere I will have to find it.

Post# 208464 , Reply# 16 5/5/2007 at 22:26 (6,199 days old) by laundryshark (Cedar Rapids, Iowa)
Checkrate/Likes *Waiting with Baiited Breath* grins--Laundry Shark