Low Fuel Level Light
Discussion
I expect most of you are bored to death with my LPG antics by now but I thought you might be interested a spin off project that Chris at Spiyda Design has been working on for me.
It all started with my idea to remove the clock in the dash & replace it with a second matching TVR fuel gauge to show my LPG level.
Simple right?.... well not really
Like most of these things it turned out to be a lot more complicated than first thought.
The biggest issue being the resistance of my LPG sender working in the opposite way to the TVR fuel gauge.
At which point Chris at Spiyda Design stepped in with his newly designed LPG Gauge Wizard
The system worked well...until you started throwing the car about in the bends
, at which point the needle was all over the place 
Chris came to the rescue again with an anti-slosh daughter board that damped the needle movement considerably and solved the wayward needle problem.
The system allows for true and accurate calibration, matching the sender to the gauge over it's full range.
There's a lot of clever stuff going on here but amazingly its all contained within a package smaller than a box of matches.
The vastly improved version two model with it's anti-slosh daughter board also came with a rather natty little low fuel warning LED that has a 6" fly lead on it allowing me to mount it discretely in the corner of the dash.
At this point we started to discuss making the system even better, and hot off of the bench today at Spiyda Design here's version 2.5.
The low fuel warning light is actually what's known as a clear water LED, that means it's completely clear when off, only glowing red when on.
This makes for a very discrete system, you can barely see the LED behind the gauge glass until it comes on, at which point its very obvious & impossible to miss.
The point at which the light comes on is completely adjustable, as is its placement, well actually there are some restrictions on placement due to the gauge internals but you could certainly have the light placed more or less anywhere in the top half of the gauge.
I've chosen to set my gauge & position of the warning light so the LED comes on as the needle passes it, the point this happens will be calibrated to a remaining fuel level of 5.5 litres before the gauge reads empty, which equates to 30 miles.
With UK LPG stations being passed on average every 15 miles or so on rout, the light is my warning to start looking out for that fill up.
The gauge continues to fall but when it reaches empty we will calibrate it in such a way that there's actually still 2.75 litres or 15 miles of driving before I'm truly out of gas.
Although it's no more complicated than flicking a switch to access my 150 miles of emergency petrol, the fuel warning light & gauge calibration should mean I never need to use it.
Remember, all this can just as easily work on your petrol only Chimaera so I'd thought I'd show you the concept as others may want the same.
Spiyda design has a number excellent devices that can work to pair any sender with any gauge, for example I'm currently testing one on my temperature gauge that correctly matches the un-used Range Rover temp sender in the inlet manifold with the TVR temperature gauge.
This incorporates an adjustable warning buzzer that sounds at a given temperature, my car idles at a absolute maximum of 93 degrees on a very hot day in a traffic jam, but is quickly pegged back by the fans to 86 degrees.
I've got the over temp warning buzzer set to come on at 103 degrees which I think should allow me to pull in & shut down before any damage is done.
Dave.
It all started with my idea to remove the clock in the dash & replace it with a second matching TVR fuel gauge to show my LPG level.
Simple right?.... well not really
Like most of these things it turned out to be a lot more complicated than first thought.
The biggest issue being the resistance of my LPG sender working in the opposite way to the TVR fuel gauge.
At which point Chris at Spiyda Design stepped in with his newly designed LPG Gauge Wizard
The system worked well...until you started throwing the car about in the bends
, at which point the needle was all over the place Chris came to the rescue again with an anti-slosh daughter board that damped the needle movement considerably and solved the wayward needle problem.
The system allows for true and accurate calibration, matching the sender to the gauge over it's full range.
There's a lot of clever stuff going on here but amazingly its all contained within a package smaller than a box of matches.
The vastly improved version two model with it's anti-slosh daughter board also came with a rather natty little low fuel warning LED that has a 6" fly lead on it allowing me to mount it discretely in the corner of the dash.
At this point we started to discuss making the system even better, and hot off of the bench today at Spiyda Design here's version 2.5.
The low fuel warning light is actually what's known as a clear water LED, that means it's completely clear when off, only glowing red when on.
This makes for a very discrete system, you can barely see the LED behind the gauge glass until it comes on, at which point its very obvious & impossible to miss.
The point at which the light comes on is completely adjustable, as is its placement, well actually there are some restrictions on placement due to the gauge internals but you could certainly have the light placed more or less anywhere in the top half of the gauge.
I've chosen to set my gauge & position of the warning light so the LED comes on as the needle passes it, the point this happens will be calibrated to a remaining fuel level of 5.5 litres before the gauge reads empty, which equates to 30 miles.
With UK LPG stations being passed on average every 15 miles or so on rout, the light is my warning to start looking out for that fill up.
The gauge continues to fall but when it reaches empty we will calibrate it in such a way that there's actually still 2.75 litres or 15 miles of driving before I'm truly out of gas.
Although it's no more complicated than flicking a switch to access my 150 miles of emergency petrol, the fuel warning light & gauge calibration should mean I never need to use it.
Remember, all this can just as easily work on your petrol only Chimaera so I'd thought I'd show you the concept as others may want the same.
Spiyda design has a number excellent devices that can work to pair any sender with any gauge, for example I'm currently testing one on my temperature gauge that correctly matches the un-used Range Rover temp sender in the inlet manifold with the TVR temperature gauge.
This incorporates an adjustable warning buzzer that sounds at a given temperature, my car idles at a absolute maximum of 93 degrees on a very hot day in a traffic jam, but is quickly pegged back by the fans to 86 degrees.
I've got the over temp warning buzzer set to come on at 103 degrees which I think should allow me to pull in & shut down before any damage is done.
Dave.
QBee said:
Nice one Dave. I like the sound of the last sentence. Given that the fans fail regularly on my car, and one tends to be watching the car in front/traffic/passing attractions when stuck in traffic on a hot day, it will be a very useful warning.
Is the dash top ever ON in your car?
Velcro mate, Velcro Is the dash top ever ON in your car?
Gassing Station | Chimaera | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff