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Improving Oil tank gauge accuracy.....ideas???

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  • rick in Alaska
    rick in Alaska Member Posts: 1,457
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    You do know you can go to your oil company and get a dip stick that is already calibrated for your fuel tank that will tell you how many gallons are left? Stick it in and read it.
    Rick
  • Leonard
    Leonard Member Posts: 903
    edited March 2018
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    Engineer here. Plotted up gallons VS depth from tables on web. Saw some discrepancys that implied curve of tank bottom intersected straight section at different height than mine did. 60 year old tank, so maybe built a little different back then. So made my own tables to reflect my tank's geometry.

    Took an old wood broom stick , put it next to a yardstick and inkpen transferred inch and 1/2 marks to it, Made my own stick faster than I could buy it.
  • STEVEusaPA
    STEVEusaPA Member Posts: 6,505
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    Whats a 'bruner' (check the chart)?

    There was an error rendering this rich post.

  • Leonard
    Leonard Member Posts: 903
    edited March 2018
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    It's what looked like "oil burner" to my tired old eyes :smile:
  • CLamb
    CLamb Member Posts: 282
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    Here's one person's solution. https://hackaday.com/2013/12/04/using-ultrasonic-sensors-to-measure-and-log-oil-tank-levels/
  • Leonard
    Leonard Member Posts: 903
    edited March 2018
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    Suspect ultrasonic beam is not that narrow. Was concerned it might not accurately sense off a narrow width of oil when tank gets VERY low. I assume it'll start getting confused by reflections off of almost horizontal sides of tank when oil near empty.

    Ok, I ran some numbers......Humm...... outlet pipe is ~ 1.5 inch off bottom, I calculate @ 1.5 inch deep the width of oil on bottom is ~ 13 inches , so maybe it will work down to 0 gallons. (I modeled tank in Excel spreadsheet for convince.)

    Spreadsheet says 1.5 inch deep is ~ 3.5 gallons, but few years ago I let tank run dry to vacuum sludge out, I got ~ 7.5 gallons out. Looks level, but maybe my tank is tipped slightly away from outlet??
  • Leonard
    Leonard Member Posts: 903
    edited March 2018
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    deleated....
  • gennady
    gennady Member Posts: 839
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    http://fuelminder.biz/Petrometer Pneumatic/i329.html
    Gennady Tsakh
    Absolute Mechanical Co. Inc.
  • Leonard
    Leonard Member Posts: 903
    edited March 2018
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    Sounds like a bubbler system, and the equivalent of a U-tube manometer to read the pressure. Not sure what the "air bell" at the tank end is all about.

    Interesting thing is the wireless transmiter tees into the tubing, that means it has the sensitive pressure sensor I was talking about. Thing is I'ld prefer it to be mounted at tank outlet so no air pumps would be needed. $$$

    This one is interesting , claims to be accurate to 1/10 gallon...... has a sliding float. I wonder how it senses position, linear differential transformer (LDT) maybe ?? But it only shows 2 wires, LDT needs 3-4 wires. http://fuelminder.biz/cruzpro/cruzpro.html
  • Leonard
    Leonard Member Posts: 903
    edited March 2018
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    Well found a new use for my calibrated tank gauge, and nightly measurments. Confirmed 60 year copper oil line is not leaking underground (indoor tank).

    Looked up gauge reading before last fillup, compared to my chart of nightly readings to see how many burner hours passed till gauge was back down to that point. Calculated gallons burned via nozzle 1.1 GPM, and compared to last fill up gallons. They matched within ~ 4%. Which ~ 2% is likely 1/32 inch measurement error on gauge reading.

    Guessing other 2% is manufacturing tolerance on nozzle GPM or the 100 psi pressure on pump I replaced few years back.

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