digital gas:oil mixture analyzer

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Just for an update working prototype will be ready within a month. If anybody is interested message me. Will answer any questions concerning to the device privately. Plus can show it in action in real time. Reread what posted earlier and have to mention some major modifications. Its completely standalone no need for pc. It has its own display with buttons. So can be used in a field. Has pretty good interactivity.
 
Honestly, I don't see the "casual home user" investing in something like this. For professionals who mix ratios of oil by the gallon instead of the ounce, I can see this as possibly a useful tool to have.

I am that "casual home user". I have a 1 gallon fuel can that is mixed around a slightly oil heavy 40:1 (I target 40:1 than add a touch more). I run all of my 2 stroke stuff (chainsaw, leaf blower, weed eater) with it and don't have any problems. In an average year, that 1 gallon can gets me through the whole year.

I have the same rule for 2-stroke fuel that I have for hand loaded ammo - it it wasn't put together by me, it doesn't go into my stuff **. If someone were to give me a can of 2-stroke fuel, it would go into the fuel tank on my car with the next fill-up.


** I have a neighbor. He's a nice guy. He grew up in the city. He bought a 2-stroke leaf blower and had trouble starting it. He showed me the "fuel pouch" that they gave him at Home Depot. Yup... he put the contents of the "fuel pouch" straight into the tank. He didn't know that the contents of the "fuel pouch" was oil and that it needed to be mixed with gasoline....
 
An inventive/intuitive person would make it into an app and put it onto the new I-phony 8.

Does anyone made it before? If no then this you can count as innovation. Whats the difference between standalone device and app? You still need to put gas into the device, or how you would pour it into your new iphone 8 to check what mix it is ? besides for me its not hard to make an app if needed but you have to have a device which can work with gas directly.
 
@Bobby Kirbos this is not for homeowner use its made for shops. To figure out how gas related problems are progressing with what failures. I am engine mechanic certified from many manufacturers am holding many mst certs with updates but when it was coming to explain knowledgeable customers why their new 2 stroke equipment suddenly lost power (heavily carbonated spark plug, afterfiring after engine is shut off, blocked exh port or partially blocked, clogged exh screen etc.) cos of rich mixture or not starting at all (scored piston and cylinder mostly) and by checking for leaks to eliminate artificial air in the crank case, it was almost impossible to check the mixture to tell how it was mixed. Every time reaching to that point I decide to research is there any way to tell how it was mixed, and couldnt find any worthy thing even no patent in US and Canada via google. So was forced to make device myself. Having good microeletronics background start to learn programming after spending 9 hours in the shop. I didnt ask for any investment from others didnt put the project into kickstarter or similar accelerators. After trials and errors and trying different methods that were working theoretically in my mind and investing more than 2000USD into the project money that I am earning from fixing engines and free time that I suppose to spend with my family which worth way much more to me I finally made a device which is capable of detecting 3 brands of oil mixes and also synthetic mixes like trufuel and motomix from stihl. brands will be expanded im currently working on it. By saying 2000USD doesn't mean that device costs that much :) money was wasted on trial and errors.
 
@plutus
I can see how a tool like this would be very useful for a pro shop technician. There is only so much you can reasonably charge for a repair and I understand that bench time costs $$. Excessive troubleshooting time is time wasted and money lost if you can't charge what it actually cost (no one is going to want to pay for 15hrs of troubleshooting when that would cost almost as much as or more than a new saw).

I'm a computer programmer with a background in electrical engineering and an upbringing in my grandfather's machine shop (pre CNC), so I can appreciate the amount resources that are being put into this.

Good luck.
 
Pictures uploaded to flickr video will be available on youtube.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/152297755@N03/f850cH

if any questions send me a private message thanks.

The one in the picture is the final fully working prototype. All new boards will be printed on PCB.

And feedback on design highly appriciated.

Currently working on documentation i.e. how to's.

Currently analyzer is working with following oils:
Echo red armour,
Echo 2-mix (greenish)
Stihl premium oil
Motomaster 2 stroke oil
Trufuel 50:1 premixed

Results are shown from 30:1 up to 55:1 with 5:1 increments, also transitions i.e. from 30:1 to 35:1, from 35:1 to 40:1 etc.
Lowest mark is 55:1 after which if mixture is 56:1 then you will get "too lean" notification on display same way if its below 30:1 then "too rich".

Capabilities are planned to be expanded monthly via new firmware updates.

Analyzer is using 5-9vdc so any 9v battery or usb or dedicated power adapter will work.

This is short description for now.
 
That's cool.
:bowdown:

What I'm curious about is how you can electronically test and determine the brand of oil (or pre-mix for that matter). Do the mfgrs. "mark" the oil or fuel with some benign additive?
 
you cant determine brand, actually you can but in this project its pointless cos you need only ratio. I added brand printout on display only for synthetic fuels like motomix or trufuel which is very hard to detect. Competitors of this device cant detect them as far as my research is true and as far as i am informed.
 
Plutus, have you thought of submitting this to Hackaday.com ?
IF your going to stay as an open source builder, then the readers like projects like this.
There are some pretty sharp people amongst the readership.
The comments are lightly moderated, so a thick skin may be required if you get anything posted there.
Humor and bad puns tend to find their way in also.
 
I was thinking of participating in hackaday,instructibles etc contests with this but right now they dont have contest for this type of project checked yesterday mostly for iot(internet of things) they have right now. All the source will be under apache lisence 2.0 except the actual database which I dont want to be fully open for now design files are under creative common attribute license 4.0 free to use modify but not be used under commercial purposes. So everything is open as u see. As I said currently am writing documentation with bill of materials used,how to's, same time am optimising code. Device is really super fast with very good accuracy. To reduce errors in calculations caused by noise or something else device is requesting data 4 times after u press measure button then its averaging results then comparing with its database and only after that showing on display. Sampling rate in current firmware was raised from 250 to 5000. Which really improved accuracy.
 
Offtopic
Yesteeday I was strugling taking out bearing from shaft with 3 jaw puller. I was alone nobody to give a hand to adjust the jaws. And puller is pretty heavy. Then I thought woudnt it be cool to make automatically adjusting puller which will find the center of the shaft or bolt head then adjust the jaws to grab the bearing and tightening its own threaded shaft when will feel too much pressure and will think its secured allow you to manually tighten it with wrench or something to take bearing out. :) this is possible to do but dont think will get enough investment to start cos its only small % of people who will ever need it.
 
Too many variables to account for, dielectric constant from various synthetic & organic oils, conductivity, fuel variants, octane and additives...
If you knew the SG(specific gravity) of the fuel and the oil you could work from there perhaps.
 
@LegDeLimber
Have to search for video but interesting puller thanks.

@anlrolfe
There are lots of methods from burning fuel and analyzing afterproducts to chemical analyzis of each element in the fuel. Specific gravity???? You have to built very expensie device to be able to detect gravity change of raw gas and 50:1 mix. And it will be really big. Specific gravity of gas and mixed oil is almost same may be difference you'll get after 3-4 decimal places but how u gonna detect that to work with?
Method that projecton is using is one of methods.
Tests show great accuracy with oils I wrote but list is expanding. Yesterday worked a bit on code and eliminated calibration at all so now no need to calibrate. Which will reduce cost of the product for 15-20$.
 

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