Company Profile

Gear Meters: Ultra-Precise Micro-Flow Volumetric Measurement for Paints, Resins, and Adhesives

Quick Answer: Gear meters measure paint, resin, and adhesive flow by trapping fixed pockets of liquid between two oval gears. Silver Instruments supplies oval gear flow meters for viscosities from 10 cP to 100,000 cP with accuracy of plus or minus 0.5 percent of reading. Send your viscosity, pipe size, pressure, and flow range in kg/h or L/h and we will return a model and price within one working day.

Why Gear Meters Fit Paint, Resin, and Adhesive Batching

Paints and adhesives often have viscosities above 50 cP. Some resins reach 20,000 cP at ambient temperature. A turbine meter or an electromagnetic flow meter struggles with these fluids. The oval gear meter does not. It uses two precision machined oval gears inside a measuring chamber. Each rotation moves a fixed volume. The flow rate is directly proportional to the gear rotation count.

Here is the thing. For batching applications, repeatability matters more than absolute speed. A gear meter from Silver Instruments delivers repeatability within plus or minus 0.1 percent. This helps a paint producer fill a 20 kg pail without overshooting the setpoint after valve closure.

In practice, we have seen gear meters installed on filling machines for 5 kg cans. A customer in Vietnam added an oval gear meter with DN15 connections and a pulse output. The meter tracked each 0.1 L dose before the valve shut. The system reduced adhesive waste by about 1.2 percent per shift.

Recommended Sizing and Common Operating Conditions

Most paint and resin lines use pipe sizes from DN15 to DN50. Flow rates sit between 0.02 L/min and 100 L/min. For micro-flow dosing, DN15 oval gear meters work well. They handle 0.02 to 2 L/min at line pressure up to 40 bar. For larger transfer lines, DN25 or DN40 models cover 0.5 to 60 L/min.

Temperature limits depend on sealing material. Standard models with PEEK gears and FKM seals run from minus 20 °C to 120 °C. High temperature versions with PTFE seals reach 180 °C. Always state the actual operating temperature. Hot resin will damage a seal chosen for cold water.

Viscosity compensation is not required for volumetric measurement. The oval gear design remains stable from 10 cP to 100,000 cP. This makes gear meters suitable for solvent based paints, epoxy resins, and pressure sensitive adhesives. But you still need to know the viscosity range. It affects pressure drop and choice of clearances.

Outputs, Hazardous Areas, and Control Integration

Silver Instruments oval gear meters can be ordered with pulse output, 4-20 mA HART, or a local totalizer. Most batching systems use the pulse output because each pulse equals a fixed volume. A common configuration on Southeast Asian adhesive lines uses a DN20 oval gear meter with a volume per pulse of 0.01 L. The PLC counts pulses and closes the valve after a target number.

For paint plants with solvent vapours, choose the ATEX Zone 1 version. The sensors are certified for gas group IIB. The meter body is stainless steel 316L or aluminium with PEEK internals. We have supplied Zone 1 units to a resin manufacturer in Indonesia. The customer used the 4-20 mA HART signal to track continuous flow into a reactor. The local display showed total volume without extra wiring.

How to Request a Quote

Most engineers skip this part. They send a flow meter inquiry without the full operating data. Then the quote comes back with too many assumptions. Do not do that.

Send us these details: fluid type, viscosity in cP, flow range in kg/h or L/h, pipe size DN, pressure in bar, temperature in °C, and hazardous area classification if any. We will propose a specific oval gear meter model with wetted materials and connection type. We reply within one working day.

You can reach Silver In