Hour meter installation
- Thread starter mellis18
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You just need to find a hot lead on the wire harness. When the key is on the hour meter will run. There should be some spare wires on the harneww that you can test.
Ditto Steve's comment and you can just add a wire to the ignition switch terminal that is hot when the key is turned on. Then just find a convenient ground wire to tap into. Don't tap into any of the sensors grounds (oil pressure, water temp, alternator) as those have some unusual grounding situations that use diodes and could lead to the buzzer staying on.
mellis18,
I'm not familiar with your engine, but if you have an oil pressure sending unit to give you a low oil pressure warning you could use that as a reference source to your hour meter.
Me... well.. I tied mine into my electric fuel pump. So really I have an hour meter on my electric fuel pump. So for every start on the engine the hour meter is running for about 15 seconds before the actual compression starts, but I figure that's close enough really. Heck, I don't time oil changes to the second.
Edit: Oops sorry, I see you are really interested in tracking fuel burn. I use my hour meter as a back up to my fuel guage but I consider my fuel guage primary and I have easy access to fuel so I rarely run below a half tank. Still, burning just a quart or so an hour on my little diesel the few seconds descrepancy from the electric fuel pump probably isn't too big of a deal.
Take care, DanM.
I'm not familiar with your engine, but if you have an oil pressure sending unit to give you a low oil pressure warning you could use that as a reference source to your hour meter.
Me... well.. I tied mine into my electric fuel pump. So really I have an hour meter on my electric fuel pump. So for every start on the engine the hour meter is running for about 15 seconds before the actual compression starts, but I figure that's close enough really. Heck, I don't time oil changes to the second.
Edit: Oops sorry, I see you are really interested in tracking fuel burn. I use my hour meter as a back up to my fuel guage but I consider my fuel guage primary and I have easy access to fuel so I rarely run below a half tank. Still, burning just a quart or so an hour on my little diesel the few seconds descrepancy from the electric fuel pump probably isn't too big of a deal.
Take care, DanM.
Dan and the other posters are correct, mellis18.. The time that the switch is on and the engine not running is really a small fraction of total time.. The variation of consumption will be greater as a result of wind/waves/boat load than from the time error of turning on the hour meter with the engine switch.. I find it hard to listen to the alarm for any time at all and that always runs when the switch is on and the engine is off.
A quick run of thumbnail numbers says that in 15 seconds, the engine burns a bit less than 0.1 fluid ounce of diesel.. so you can adjust your consumption to exclude this amount .. That engine if running well and fitted
wit the proper propeller should burn a little less than half gallon an hour at a sensible cruise RPM.. (2500-2800)..
A quick run of thumbnail numbers says that in 15 seconds, the engine burns a bit less than 0.1 fluid ounce of diesel.. so you can adjust your consumption to exclude this amount .. That engine if running well and fitted
wit the proper propeller should burn a little less than half gallon an hour at a sensible cruise RPM.. (2500-2800)..
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