Question 1

The connector to the flow meter has a brown, white, and yellow wire. Which wire is positive, which is ground, and which is the signal wire?

Accepted Answer

What model flow sensor? 
The wiring harness has white, yellow & brown... Brown is VCC+ (positive battery). White is ground. Yellow is pulse input to the meter (from sensor).
I mainly use the FL-408 sensor, but have others as well. It has red, black, & yellow wires. Red is positive power, black is ground, yellow wire is square wave pulse output from hall effect sensor. Other models have different coloured wires.. You could safely take the cover off the hall effect sensor and check, but easiest to simply plug the mating connectors together *between the sensor and the meter, and "follow" the wires across.

Question 2

could you use it just to monitor water flow and not hook up a solonid valve

Accepted Answer

Yes, I have it setup to monitor water flow only and have several hook up points, so I can move the meter to any of those sensors.

Question 3

Just received this product and it appears to attempt opening the solenoid at 12.2vdc and then trips my digiten lfc? is this a shorted solenoid?

Accepted Answer

Possibly!  Test the solenoid separately.
Try using a separate 12VDC Power supply rated at least 2 Amp DC, and measure the current draw switching it on and off. The solenoid is not polarity dependent, so the wires will go either way. Depending on the solenoid type (There are a few), it may dray 2 Amps by itself, (more on "inrush curent"), in which case you may be overloading the plug pack that came with the DFC15. These are only rated at 2A!Also, listen to the solenoid. You should hear it "click" and if you have it in your hand, - you should feel the impulse of the solenoid. I have found a couple of solenoids that have been poorly assembled and "jammed", and have been able to fix them simply by re-assembling. I found another fitted with a 24V coil instead of the 12VDC coil. (Another cheaper version of the Liquid Flow Controller uses a 24VDC Power supply). Unlikely, but not impossible that the 12VDC driver output within the DFC15 is faulty. It sources its supply voltage from the incoming DC from the socket input, filtered with an electrolytic capacitor (that assists with the inrush current for the solenoid), then "switched" with an output driver transistor. Very simple output driver circuit, but all surface mount, so not easily serviceable.

Question 4

Can this be rigged in some way as z-wave/smart home compatible controller to use with an econet controls bulldog valve robot?

Accepted Answer

Highly unlikely. The Digiten controllers do not have a comms interface. The manufacturer does not supply any form of technical documentation.

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DIGITEN Water Liquid Flow Rate Volume Digital Display Flowmeter Quantitative Controller Counter Liter Gallon

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