@johnnyruz - Man, I was so excited to get this thing hooked up, but now disappointed. I am having full pints of foam. I’ve tried lowering the PSI, but that isn’t helping much. I used these these flowmeters1 thinking that the small input/output and size would lead to less foam because there wasn’t as much expansion as the bigger ones, but it is doing a great job of making beer froth for me.
I’m going to try to lengthen lines, move the flowmeter closer to the faucet, etc, but I’m pretty bummed so far.
That’s really frustrating and I felt the exact same way when I first attached my flow meters. With my current setup fortunately I have been able to avoid any foam issues (6’ 3/16" lines, Adafruit Flow Meters, stainless steel adapters linked in my new installation post).
What pressure are you running your CO2 at how far from the keg are the flow meters attached? Also, with that size input, do you just have your lines connected directly to the flow meter or is there some type of adapter involved?
Good call moving it to a new thread. I went as far as removing CO2 and purging the keg so it is just a trickle…still foam.
As of now, I have 2’ of 3/16" tubing connected directly to flow meter and then 7’ of 3/16" tubing to the tap. I really thought that the lack of sizing changes from adapters would make it flow smooth as butter, but I guess not!
I am going to try moving the flow meter around in the configuration and see how that works. Past that, out of ideas other than trying other flow meters.
Yeah, I’ve found closer to the keg is better and it sounds like you’ve already done that. I would have expected the same with the smaller diameter flow meter connectors, that’s really frustrating!
Sorry at this point I don’t have any inspired ideas, but the good news is that if you want to replicate my setup exactly with the Adafruit flow meters and stainless adapters, total cost is $35-40.
I feel your pain @Cyrisx2 I’m also struggling with foam. I use 4mm (5/32") ID line and 1.1m (3.6 ft) line between meter and tap and about 0.5 ft between keg and meter. I’ve used this line length flawlessly without the flow meter installed, but with - quite a lot of foam. I’ve also had to drop c02 pressure.
I think I have the same flow meters as you.
Which seem to be veeeery similar to the adafruit ones @johnnyruz is using… only slightly different specs. The advantage of these ones being that they have inbuilt barbs.
I use the yf-s201 or whatever they are called, they are a few dollars off aliexpress. Get them as close to the keg as you can and you might need a little more line length. I also have about 500mm height raise from the keg to taps running 5mm line and about 3.5m length at 13psi. All works flawlessly
@angrypirate - I’ve beer trying out various flow meters and found one that works fairly well for cheap! I think the key is having a turbine-style one, that doesn’t agitate the beer as much.
Since the threads are BSP and not the US NPT, I had trouble finding fittings that worked. I ended up putting a crap ton of pipe tape and just forcing on a NPT 1/4" Barb. So far, so good. It foams a little more than normal but not much more. I dropped the PSI to about 7 and it’s pretty good. I’m going to see if I can bump it back up, but I’m pretty happy after the frustration of the other flow meter.
Meters are now installed !
Very minimal difference (if any) before and after install (foaming), which is awesome!
No wiring as yet @johnnyruz … but had planned to use with pull up resistor.
Will do some testing.
How are you getting on with your install?
A couple of notes - it looks like the pull up resistors are needed.
And the pulses / ticks per ml is a lot less than the previous flow meters I was using. I still need to do a bit of fine tuning but it looks around 0.5 pulses / ml. Or 1 pulse per 2ml.
The biggest self service in the world PourMyBeer, uses normal flow meters (YS-S201 or very similar), but says, THE PRESSURE SHOULD BE 50%. The excuses in the orientations is “The regular costumer does not need more than 1 -1.5oz / sec”. Really ? Fifteen seconds to fill a Pint ? Just kiding me.
Look in the link:
I found the ASPEN FLOW METER from Quebec, special for beers, without any disturbing, but is too much expensive, 160 CAD.
So I found this page and the URL of the Uxcell flow meter does not exist anymore, but I find the similar model in a shape like de Aspen Flow meter. So I search for flow meters in this shape and found the YS-S201C. I ordered 2 for about 10USD, and praying to work.
Thanks to all people here, in special to @angrypirate
