CCP 08-17-1995 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I , I- In 1992, Apple Valley Supt. Neal Heuer mailed 10,700 survey cards to all the water customers in the city. The customers were to return the cards with the . reading found on the meter itself inside the home. These readings were then compared to the readings found on the remote devices. There were 3,887 cards considered to be valid responses and the results calculated were astonishing as . well as costly. They are: -The generator type meters that were being installed would fail at . the same rate as the older meters in the system. In effect the water dept. was only perpetuating the situation and could not expect a . solution to this problem by continuing to install generator type water meters. . -The data demonstrated that a minimum of 18,151,000 gallons of unbilled water had been distributed throughout the system! At today's rates, this is a lot of money! I "the complete report is available upon request. Apple Valley is installing only the Sensus Technologies TouchRead meters . throughout the system. Generator meters are seeing no further development and will not be incorporated into any future centralized meter reading technologies such as Phon Read or RadioRead. .- What is TouchRead? . TouchRead - A product of Sensus Technologies, inc. that automates the process of reading utility meters (water, gas, electric) utilizing absolute encoder register technology connected to a remote mounted sensor. Absolute Encoder I Technology addressed the problems of the generator based system by eliminating the generator principle entirely. No longer are pulses being transmitted to a remote device and counted. I How it works - Using inductive couplings in the remote sensor and reading gun, a reading is taken from the register. To read the meter register with a Touchgun I connected to the handheld data collection device, you would press the trigger on the reading gun. When the trigger is pressed, power from the handheld device is sent through the remote touchpad down the wire directly to the meter where I the encoder register is powered and the actual positions of the wheels of the register are interrogated and sent back up the wire to the handheld. No possibility exists where you can get an incorrect reading because the "secondary . source" has been eliminated. Along with the reading, the register identification is also transferred back to the handheld thereby eliminating the possibility of ever posting the wrong reading to the wrong account. The power-up and transfer of I register data takes less than one second. .- .