Fuel Level Interpolation Bug

jbeaver

New Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
97
Location
San Jose, CA
I had the fuel calibration table up in flight yesterday and noticed a bug with the way fuel level interpolation is done. In my installation, 0.75 volts corresponds to the 6 gallon level. I was flying along with a voltage readout of 0.77 volts and the fuel level was correctly indicating 6 since I was just above the corresponding sensor value, but the moment it dropped to 0.75 volts, the tank level dropped to 5 gallons. This shouldn't have happened since 0.75 volts represents precisely 6 gallons.
 

dynonsupport

Dynon Technical Support
Staff member
Joined
Mar 23, 2005
Messages
13,226
This isn't really a bug. There is more precision in the back-end than you can see on that page. You're seeing a number that is rounded to 0.00, when internally we have 0.0000 precision.

Also, we always round down the fuel state whenever there is any doubt, like at calibration points.
 

jbeaver

New Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
97
Location
San Jose, CA
I understand the desire to round down to avoid showing more fuel than is actually onboard, but doing so a whole gallon is misleading. Is it possible to have the fuel gauge round to something smaller like 0.1 or 0.5 gallons?
 

dynonsupport

Dynon Technical Support
Staff member
Joined
Mar 23, 2005
Messages
13,226
When you have 15.87987652 gallons on board, 15 is less misleading than 16.

Many fuel senders can only send about 20 levels to the EMS. If you look at them closely, they have resistance "blocks" and aren't continuous. Thus, you can't actually get 1/2 gallon accuracy on an RV tank with ~20 gallons. So we only show half gallon increments if you have a tank 10 gallons or less. There isn't a way for you to adjust this.

We know capacitance and higher resolution analog senders exist as well. However, trying to show 15.8 gallons or even 15.5 gallons gives a false sense of security. If the plane is on a slight slope on the ground, your ball is out in flight, or there's a touch of alcohol in your fuel throwing off your capacitive system, or if your tank has a non-linear shape between calibration points, rounding down to whole gallons prevents the pilot from thinking they have more fuel than they do. Which is always a good thing.

In an O-360 running LOP, 1/2 gallon is under 4 minutes. 1/10th a gallon is 46 seconds. Given those timeframes, I don't really see the advantage to trying to show fuel levels to such precision, given the senders and the rest of the system don't have that accuracy.

The fuel computer does show in tenths of a gallon since fuel flow senders easily achieve this resolution.
 
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