Gasoline flow meter

Benoit

I have a small fishing boat, a 17 footer, and the darn thing costs me an arm and a leg in gasoline. From my research on the web, large boat owners use a fuel flow meter to find the sweet spot where the engines consume the less for the best speed. I've seen marine websites that sell these gasoline flow meters, but they are very expensive.

I've been toying with this idea for a while now: get an inline flow meter that can send pulses as gasoline flows, count the pulses with a stamp or sx, and display the result on an LCD screen.

Can anyone recommend me a reseller of inexpensive flow meters? I can't seem to find one that sells directly, only OEM manufacturers.

Thanks!
Benoit

Bruce Bates

Benoit -

My suggestion is to think VERY carefully about putting ANYTHING electrical in or near any gasoline lines, or in the bilge of a boat. Large boat owners can afford to use gasoline flowmeters that are approved for the purpose, UL Listed, Coast Guard approved, and are intended for use in bilges and on gasoline lines.

I'm sorry if it sound like I'm coming on strong, but I don't want to see YOU and your BOAT go UP in a PUFF of SMOKE ... and DIE!

Regards,

Bruce Bates

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sam_sam_sam

Benoit

Here is something that may work for you

Bruce Bates

My suggestion is to think VERY carefully about putting ANYTHING electrical in or near any gasoline lines, or in the bilge of a boat.

I'm sorry if it sound like I'm coming on strong, but I don't want to see YOU and your BOAT go UP in a PUFF of SMOKE ... and DIE!

I second this be very very CARE FULL

http://www.gemplers.com/product/G57880/Digital-Flow-Meter

Here is one·more to look at

http://www.instrumart.com/Product.aspx?ProductID=10035


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··Thanks for any··that you may have and all of your time finding them

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Sam

Post Edited (sam_sam_sam) : 3/1/2008 12:13:34 AM GMT

Benoit

Bruce, of course you're right, and of my insurance company would have a fit if I used anything not UL/CSA approved.

Sam, the second item from your link sounds promising, but man is it expensive. The meter from link #1 is cheaper, but it makes it very inconvenient to look at while steering.

I'll keep looking, but the sensor from instrumart is probably the most promising at the moment.


Thanks!

-Benoit

sam_sam_sam

Benoit

Sam, the second item from your link sounds promising, but man is it expensive.

Any time you are looking any type of flow meter they are· expensive and what you are looking for gasoline
are going even more expensive· than one that can just use water

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··Thanks for any··that you may have and all of your time finding them

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Sam

terry_bear

Benoit,

A suggestion: check with your local mechanic. Cars that have trip computer (with gas mileage readouts use flow sensors, and the manufacturers aren't using $100-$300 meters. I bought a retrofit cruise control kit some years back and the entire pkg was under $100. Admittedly, inflation will have double it by now, but still...

I did a (very) quickt and flow sensors (supply your own readout) seem to be considerably less expensive than flow meters.

Just a thought, and yes, DO be careful!

Terry

Twisted Pair

In the 1970's, when out of gas signs at gas stations were everywhere, people were buying what I believe was called fuel economizers. These were nothing more than Vacuum gauges with green, yellow and Red screenprinting on the gauge to show the best fuel economy. This gauge was mounted under the dash but if you had room on the dashboard, it could be mounted there as well. The gauge used rubber tubing which was connected to a Vacuum source on the intake manifold. The automobile engines were of coarse four cycle engines but if your boat engine is a two cycle, just make the rubber hose connection anywhere after the carburetor. If you wanted to use a stamp in your project, the rubber hose connection point would be the same as described above, just pick the stamp that you want to use, get the length of rubber hose you need, add a electronic Vacuum sensor, Lcd or Led display etc, to show the sweet spot, do the code and off you go. Much better than electricity near gasoline.

Twisted Pair....

Marky-Mark

While I think an econo gauge on a car is worth while, on a boat it is not going to tell you a whole lot.· Your engine will consume the same ammount each time you get to the same RPM.· Of course there will be different consumptions for planing and non planing.· Also each time you change your prop the fuel consumption curve will change.·
The old school way, and still a very reliable way, is just to note RPM vs speed and create a chart.· Or if··you hve a long way to go just note the fuel consumed and what RPM's you were at.· Your optimum speed will be with the boat planing and just before the RPM's increase without any significant increase in speed.·

My dad does this for all his customers.· On one boat he showed the customer that he would be only one knot slower if he turned off one of his two engines, probably 500+ dollars worth of savings per trip.

But heck, if you got to have one more gadget on your boat I fully understand.




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12-25-07 Got SX Lite Kit Plus for Christmas

12-27-07 Bought LED's and other components
12-29-07 Realized that none of my wal-warts work with board
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1-3-08 Decided to use old laptop with a serial sub-d, that barely meets the minimum sk-key requirements.· Got LED to BLINK!!!!!!
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LoopyByteloose

Basically, gasoline fuel pumps are either mechanical or electrical. If the electrical one has a cycle to shut off when there is excessive pressure, you might measure the fuel pumps activity. A hall sensor that this attached to the exterior of the wire that powers such an electric full pump would give you a nice, safe interface to get data.

I think between the insurance companies and the Coast Guard, every commercial boat owner is well aware of the explosion risks of nautical gasoline engines. And every year or so, someone in your home port either has a fire or explosion. You could use a BasicStamp with a hydrocarbon sensor to monitor your bilge for safe ignition and have it refuse to start the engine unless you explicitly override or a cycle of ventilation reduces the fume level.

I know that it is too expensive for many fishermen, but diesel really provides better fuel economy and safety.

I had an old 1952 Chevy with a 235 engine and vacumn driven windshied wipers. The wipers would not run properly unless the engine was exactly in tune. It might be easier to install a vacumn gauge in your insturment panel, get your valves and timing dead on; and then watch it as you run. Not all mechanic texts cover the theory of how the vacumn pressure in the engine provides information about the car's efficiency, but good one's do. Try a local library from some older texts, before all the pollution control devices started to detune the engine.

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PLEASE CONSIDER the following:

Do you want a quickly operational black box solution or the knowledge included therein?······

···················· Tropically,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan

Benoit

Thanks for your feedback guys.
Marky-Mark, that was pretty much the conclusion I got : different props and different water temps will affect the fuel consumption. It's mainly at the higher speeds that I want to look at. When I trawl, I use a smaller 9.8hp, 4-cycle kicker. This one sips gas at about 1 1.5 gallons per day, pretty sweet.
And yes, got to have gadets GPS and Sonar are soooo yesterday Tech stuff that I build, now, that's more like it. First thing I built was a throttle controller for the kicker, using a servo and a pic12c508 ( yes yes, I know, not a SX or basic stamp...). Now it's time to turn to instrumentation.

Twisted-pair, the idea sounds good, but I'm not too good with vacuum stuff, and with 4 carbs... I'll keep it in mind, in case the other stuff doesn't work out.

Kramer, I do have a gas fumes sensor that beeps the hell out when it detects a spill, plus runs an exhaust fan at high speed. Now, I could see another project here [noparse]:D[/noparse] Some kind of display that shows the level of fumes in the bilge

The bigger engine is a 90hp Mercury 4-cycle. Not a big 250 hp, I know, but still with gas at over $4.50/gallon Canadian, anything I can do to lower fuel consumption will be great. Last year, it cost me about $75 per day to run the boat. This year I will cost me even more, unless I can figure the best RPM/fuel ratio.

I was thinking of using a 4x20 LCD or even a small graphic LCD display, and show a live graph of RPM vs Fuel flow. I could keep in memory the sweetest spot found, and put it on display.

I can get at the RPM pulse easily. I'll take a look at the fuel pump, maybe I can figure out some way of measuring it's activity.

Time to dig for the service manual on that engine.

-Benoit

Benoit

I think I found something that could work... on eBay of course [noparse]:)[/noparse]
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/YAMAHA-FUEL-FLOW-METER-SENDER-6Y5-85752-01-00_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ50439QQihZ016QQitemZ260216124245QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW
( Item Number: 260216124245 )
This looks a lot like the second item Marky-mark pointed to.

At $55, this is affordable. The only hitch is that I can't find the specs online, but it can't be too hard to figure how to use it.

-Benoit

Nick Waldvogel

Benoit
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PM me and I can help you out with a Mercury service manual.·

I will also check at work tomorrow and see if I can get you any info on that meter you found on Ebay.
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Nick

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