B: RE: Beer2OSH

[Ralph Requa]

I'm in the process of making a fuel dipstick for my Bonanza. When I had the
tanks empty for the last weighing I measured the tank gallons at five gallon
intervals when I refueled. Now I plan on transferring those measurements to
a wood stick and cutting kerfs in the wood at those five gallon marks. I
might interpolate at two gallon increments.  I'm then going to emboss the
numerical valve into the wood. I envision having one side of the stick for
the mains, one side for the aux, and one side for the tips. 

I don't want to have anything glued, screwed, or nailed to the stick as it
might come off while in the tank. 

I have a thermometer that I purchased at a dark room shop. The thing is
about 8 inches long and has a nice plastic case. I can thus measure the fuel
temperature and get an even more accurate picture of the fuel on board. 

Yeah, I agree; I have too much time on my hands. <g>

Cheers, Ralph

-----Original Message-----
From: beech-owners-bounces at beechcraft.org
[mailto:beech-owners-bounces at beechcraft.org] On Behalf Of Marc Charron
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 9:59 AM
To: beech-owners at beechcraft.org
Subject: Re: B: RE: Beer2OSH

I find the biggest source of inaccuracy is the expansion of gas and where
you fill it up. If you fill to the brim to get accurate readings your fuel
will expand and blow out the overflow. If you fill less than full, it is
hard to be consistant and to be accurate to less than a gallon. The best is
to find a mark in the tank that will not allow the fuel to expand and leak
and keep records at every fill. Whenever I reset the shadin, I always record
what it says vs what I put in the tank. 2% is close enough for me.

Marc Charron


On 8/5/08, Jim_SB <Jim_SB at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ralph, John, Tom, Lance, Don et al who responded,
>
> Thanks for the info.!
>
> The pain of the FF installation cost is rapidly subsiding. I am so utterly
> impressed with how well it is working right out of the box - and how easy
it
> all is to use.
>
> Most important to me is the accuracy. Being off (on the high side) by
about
> a half gallon on a 65 gallon fillup (roughly .7% - .8% so far) is fine for
> my needs. As my youngest daughter said "Dad, I'd rather have it that way
> than being off the other way". <g>
>
> Honestly most of our flying doesn't require a max. range effort so I
> typically go for a 13 gph type FF that is a nice mix of speed and economy.
> But now I am also learning those figures may have been off by as much as 1
> gph (so far it seems when my factory gauge says 13gph I'm really burning
> 14gph). It's almost frustrating enough to have the gauge pulled and sent
to
> be re-calibrated - or is that common among the factory FF gauges?
>
> Anyway - now I'm fired up to go redo my Gami Spread test again and get
more
> accurate data.
>
> It was awesome in cruise to burn 39 gallons out of the left side (I now
> switch on gallons burned, not time as Tom H. recommended) and then see 39
> gallons go into the tank at the fuel truck.
>
> As for my installation - geez maybe it breaks all the rules. IIRC the line
> comes up on the right side of the engine, goes across to the left, makes a
> 180 degree bend then a short stretch (4") to the transducer but I thought
it
> went into an elbow from there to the distribution spider valve.
>
> In any event I am very pleased with the results so far.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jim in Santa Barbara
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lance Fisher" <lfisher at cyberoptics.com
> >
> To: <beech-owners at beechcraft.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 6:46 AM
> Subject: Re: B: RE: Beer2OSH
>
>
> Two items for you to consider:
>>
>> 1> When you install the flowmeter (transducer) try to arrange it so the
>> fuel lines run straight from it for at least 4, preferrably 6 inches
before
>> making any bends.  I believe this is particularly important for the line
>> from the fuel servo, less so for the line to the fuel distributor.
Putting a
>> 90 elbow at the flowmeter port is a big no-no.  I'm told that any bends
or
>> elbows near the flowmeter can create turbulence in the fuel at high rates
>> which impairs the accuracy of the measurement.
>>
>> 2> 1% is likely as close as you can get.  For one thing the flowmeter
>> senses volume not mass and the ratio of the two (density) varies with
>> temperature enough to cause that kind of error.  In addition the
flowmeter
>> itself isn't likely to be any more accurate than that, 1% is actually
pretty
>> good.  Finally the bladders in your wings expand and contract with
>> temperature as well as time so you'd have to average several fills to
>> determine what the true error is.
>>
>> 3> (so I can't count) Turbine flowmeters have about as much chance of
>> stopping your engine as the fuel lines currently in place.  About the
only
>> way that could happen would be for one to crack open and leak enough fuel
to
>> decrease power and/or start a fire and I've never heard of that
happening.
>>  It is possible for the turbine to seize which /might/ cause a slight
>> reduction in flow but probably nowhere near enough to matter.  In fact
it's
>> possible that there would be less flow restriction with the turbine
stopped,
>> like the drag of a stopped prop compared to a windmilling one.  The
>> flowmeters are pretty reliable WRT measuring flow but they can and do
fail
>> in that regard.  I had to replace one of mine that was intermittent.  I
>> think it was bad when new but the problem was so infrequent that I didn't
do
>> anything about it for several years.  There are some electronics in the
>> device so elevated temperatures can be detrimental.
>>
>> Jim_SB wrote:
>>
>> Hi guys,
>>>
>>> Call it dumb luck (or I paid to much for the installation? <ng>) but my
>>> CNX 80 and the new JPI FS 450 seem to be playing very nicely together
with
>>> zero effort from me.
>>>
>>> In fact - I have never touched a thing on the CNX 80 whatsoever. It gets
>>> everything automatically from the FS 450. The 450 is wired to the master
bus
>>> (thanks John Collins) and all I do is tell it I filled up (which I
pretty
>>> much always do) before engine start then the rest is black box magic at
it's
>>> finest.
>>>
>>> Right now - for observation purposes - I set up a map page on the CNX 80
>>> to show Fuel Flow, Fuel Remaining at Destination and Fuel Required to
>>> Destination (I think those are the ones). Anyway - they all march in
lock
>>> step with the FS 450 which is as it should be. I never tell the CNX 80
>>> anything re fuel and it never asks.
>>>
>>> Yesterday we were roughly 6:15 from Chicago to Denver (nasty headwinds).
>>> The FS 450 said something like 64.5 gallons and we took 64.1.
>>>
>>> Today going from Denver to Camarillo the 450 said 65.1 gallons and it
>>> took 64.38.
>>>
>>> So after 2 max. range trips it appears to me like it's about 1% off -
>>> that seems awfully good right out of the box. Does it even pay to try to
>>> calibrate it further?
>>>
>>> Installation costs dwarfed the acquisition price ($355 after rebate) but
>>> DAMN that little gadget is impressive. Appears my factory FF gauge is
off by
>>> at least 1 GPH across the board, even more at lower settings (it shows
lower
>>> than actual fuel consumption - not good!).
>>>
>>> Now I need to redo my Gami lean tests now that I have real data. Another
>>> weird thing - in the past #2 is virtually always the richest cylinder at
my
>>> normal 2500 rpm / WOT / 13 gph settings. I found that at high altitudes
and
>>> low rpm / power / FF that #5 or #6 end up being the richest. Is it
common
>>> for that sort of thing to occur? Before the JPI I thought my Gami spread
was
>>> .3 gph - need to re-test.
>>>
>>> Question - is their a fail safe mode on the in line fuel transducer? My
>>> Wife wants to know....... <g>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Jim in Santa Barbara
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cameron Dunlap" <
>>> beechlist at checkyoursitter.com>
>>> To: <beech-owners at beechcraft.org>
>>> Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 8:07 PM
>>> Subject: RE: B: RE: Beer2OSH
>>>
>>>
>>> Hey Lance. I have a Shadin and 480 combo. The fuel option was turned off
>>>> on
>>>> the 480 till recently.
>>>>
>>>> I'm going to have it turned back off. I've come to the conclusion that
>>>> the
>>>> Shadin does what I need.
>>>>
>>>> I don't like the extra steps and the confusion between units that I am
>>>> now
>>>> experiencing, similar to your issue but different.
>>>>
>>>> Cam Dunlap
>>>> B55 - Corning, NY
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: beech-owners-bounces at beechcraft.org
>>>> [mailto:beech-owners-bounces at beechcraft.org] On Behalf Of Lance Fisher
>>>> Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 6:20 PM
>>>> To: beech-owners at beechcraft.org
>>>> Subject: Re: B: RE: Beer2OSH
>>>>
>>>> My Shadin totalizer is wired to the main bus as well (a requirement for
>>>> it
>>>> replacing the OEM FF gauge IIRC). Where I get a problem is when I
>>>> realize I
>>>> need to update the Fuel On Board after turning on the avionics.  This
>>>> inevitably confuses the 480 about the current fuel situation and
results
>>>> in
>>>> the 480 either not displaying anything except
>>>> flow rates or showing bogus fuel at destination.   This may not be an
>>>> issue with the FS450 but I was told by Garmin that the 480 only pays
>>>> attention to FOB during initialization and uses integrated flow to
>>>> determine
>>>> FOB after that.
>>>>
>>>> -lance
>>>>
>>>> Jim_SB wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Your comment above re initialization is interesting.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is the GNS 480 / CNX 80 simply tracking FF and Fuel Consumed (vs. all
>>>>> the info. from the totalizer)?
>>>>>
>>>>> I talked with JA (and John Collins) and both agree that I should
>>>>> install the FS 450 off the master buss (not the avionics buss) so as
>>>>> soon as the master is ON the FS 450 will track fuel consumption (even
>>>>> before engine start when I prime).
>>>>>
>>>>> My CNX 80 won't reset until it is booted up shortly after engine start
>>>>> as part of it's initialization process (so it should always be a tad
>>>>> off unless it somehow gets that info. from the FS 450).
>>>>>
>>>>> I suppose in a perfect world the FS 450 would tell the CNX 80 FF, Fuel
>>>>> consumed and Fuel remaining but that seems inconsistent with your
>>>>> experience. The difference should not be much, but it is good to
>>>>> understand how these units interface.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> Jim in Santa Barbara
>>>>> '76 A36 Bonanza based Camarillo, CA
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>