Have a recently installed 6,000hp engine, burning MGO, and am looking around for a fuel flowmeter/totalizer. Anyone got a system they would recomend or ones to avoid? Not sure what is out there for units on the market in this size range, a quick google search turned up plenty of smaller flow units but nothing in this range. Would prefer at least 1 1/4"npt ports and if possible a unit that could output an flow rate, either 4-20mA or 0-5v that we could input to our PLC system. Been spoiled with the CAT’s having an accurate, reliable fuel burn right on the MPD display.
Thanks,
The brand we use is Sponsler, they seem to work decent as long as they are calibrated right. We run ours on 24 volt through the PLC as well. They call them fuel meter totalizer’s, I always just thought that was a funny name.
www.sponsler.com
Chief,
Thanks for the link, I sent them an email to see what they have to offer.
JW
Flowscan has turnkey systems for just under $2000 per engine. I believe they have NMEA 0183 outputs and may have others. I’m not sure if that would be easy to connect to your PLC system.
Otherwise, you can buy two flow transducers through an outfit like omega.com and do some simple programing in your PLC or connect them to panel meters that have built in totalizers, also available through omega.com
Well FloScan is out, they don’t have anything rated for the flow we would need, they seemed very helpful just nothing big enough.
When you get one compare the meter use to your actual use and make a correction factor. Nothing is exact but you may need to do it for accuracy. The newer totalizers are better than the old nutating disc meters I cut my teeth on.
Who manufactured the alarm panels in your boat? Most panels are PLC based nowadays and are easily upgraded to provide real time outputs and total consumption values. I know a really good company out of Seattle, Marine Controls Inc., and while they build their own panels they also support other brands and could probably incorporate any type of flow meter into your current panel.