Multiple fuel gauges inline?

[akarmy]

Hi, I'm wondering if there's a way I can hookup both the Skyview EMS connection and another fuel gauge inline to monitor the resistive stewart warner senders in my RV8? I'm using these Belite gauges. But I'd like to have them connected to the Skyview as well if possible.

Belite fuel gauges by akarmy, on Flickr

 

[dynonsupport]

Andy,
You might be able to hook them in parallel, but if you are doing this for redundancy, you won't have any. Because the display device powers the sender, if the belite fails or is even just turned off, SkyView's reading will be completely wrong. Same with SkyView being off or failed- this may mess up the belite reading.

So if you are OK with those tradeoffs and still want to see it on both gauges at a time, we can help you with that configuration.

Another issue is that I believe the belite gauges only work with Capacitve senders, not resistive.

P.S. You'll end up looking at the SkyView all the time anyway since it's calibrated in gallons and not %, and can be calibrated for the non-linear response of the fuel sender.

 

[akarmy]

ok, here's the thinking, the goal of the belite's was to install them in a slanted panel just in front of the fuel selector. Helps with the quick look down to turn the fuel selector and checking you have fuel where you are turning to.

Don't need redundancy, that's what I have a timer for. So how about making the Skyview primary and hooking the belite's in parallel? Like you say, I can get the nice display and have the visual backup if needed.

PS, these are a new model of Belite's that do support resistive or capacitive probes and have full calibration capability. but as you say are listed in % full.

 

[akarmy]

Just to followup on this topic for future reference or if others go down this path. So in my case I have resistive senders, so from some searching on VAF the solution seems to be to have one gauge system running in resistive mode and the other gauge running in capacitive mode. This way the resistive system will power the senders and generate an output voltage which the capacitive system can read simply as a voltage input. The example on VAF was to use the legacy analog Vans gauges with a D-180 hooked up in parallel.

So I'm thinking since the Belite's can function in either mode as well as Skyview, I'll make the Skyview primary, hooked up to the resistive senders. That solves the direct redundancy issue and should allow Skyview to function normally. Then I'll setup the Belite's in Capacitive mode to read the output voltage in parallel on the line going to Skyview. It's helpful that both systems use 0-5V for their measurements so they should be fairly comparable.

Lastly, note to self (and others in the future) it would have been much simpler to just stay with Skyview only. and I may still go that route before it's all said and done. Time will tell.