Making a flowmeter shouldn't actually be that hard. I have seen flowmeters with a wheel that spins in an offset compartment to the pipe on some sites though. These are not really meters though, just indicators - spinning = flow. All you'd need for a flowmeter is something that spins in a tube when water flows past. Calibrating it could be done by sticking an opto reflective sensor outside on the tube, thereby isolating the sensor from the water. You could do it with magnets as well, a spinning magnet with a hall effect IC and buffered output would work. As long as the propeller was streamlined and the whole shebang didn't impede flow too much, you might get some decent results. I was just thinking maybe you could make an aluminium impeller / torpedo type design, mask off half the torpedo tube on one side and spray the rest black. Allow the tail and nose to pivot, and hey presto, an opto-reflective type torpedo style flow meter. Calibrate it and hook it up to MBM and you're away!
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