Adafruit
Clear Turbine Water Flow Sensor with 3-pin JST
Measure liquid/water flow for your solar, computer cooling, or gardening project using this handy basic flow meter featuring a fully clear plastic body. This...
Measure liquid/water flow for your solar, computer cooling, or gardening project using this handy basic flow meter featuring a fully clear plastic body. This sensor sits in line with your water line and uses a pinwheel sensor to measure how much liquid has moved through it. The pinwheel has a little magnet attached, and there's a hall effect magnetic sensor on the other side of the plastic tube that can measure how many spins the pinwheel has made through the plastic wall. This method allows the sensor to stay safe and dry.
The sensor comes with a JST PH 2mm pitch connector and three wires: red (5-15VDC), black (ground), and yellow (Hall effect pulse output). By counting the pulses from the output of the sensor, you can easily track fluid movement: each pulse is approximately 2.25 milliliters. Note this isn't a precision sensor, and the pulse rate does vary a bit depending on the flow rate, fluid pressure, and sensor orientation. It's designed for 1 to 30 Liters/min. It will need careful calibration if better than 10% precision is required. However, it's great for basic measurement tasks!

Jargon buster
Plain-language definitions for the technical terms used above.
- 2mm pitch
- Pitch is the distance between the centres of neighbouring pins on a connector. A 2mm pitch header is smaller than the common 2.54mm breadboard spacing, so you need matching cables and headers rather than standard breadboard jumper leads.
- JST PH
- A small keyed plug-and-socket connector with 2 mm pin spacing, often used for low-power electronics connections. You need the correct JST PH cable, and its current rating limits how much power should be passed through it.
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