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Permalink Reply by Ken Ryan on December 14, 2017 at 6:32pm

As advertised, this thing lights green in the presence of liquid, red when dry. I was disappointed when I saw this because it is useless for the approximate 10 percent of the population that is red/green color blind, so I told them. Turns out, the green light can be disabled, resulting in a much improved "off" in the presence of liquid, "red light" when dry. It's hell being left handed AND color blind.

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Permalink Reply by Gil DeVault on December 15, 2017 at 7:10am

I think they have a good, but limited product for the 601. Where would you install? What I would like to see is a pressure transducer setup where you could T off the incoming fuel line and accurately measure the  weight of the fuel in the tank. That could easily be calibrated as fuel level left in the tank. I know for every 1 k of altitude you loose 1" pressure, but this could also be calibrated fairly easily I would think. A combination of both or maybe one could just T off the tank and depending on the height of this sensor above the fitting would give you the low level warning. On second thought I think this may work on my 601, Ill double check today as I am in the process of draining my tanks anyway to check what my gages  say in regards to the actual fuel levels. My gages say full  until the fuel levels visually are down  a few inches from the top of the tank, and then the gauges drop quite fast. 

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Permalink Reply by Joe Hopwood on December 15, 2017 at 7:22am

Hi Gil,  I still think the most accurate way to measure fuel remaining is to know how much you start with and then subtract fuel used.  This will only be wrong in two circumstances I can think of.  1. fuel leak before flow transponder and 2. flow transponder or instrument failure.  Something like Belite's system would only be good in nice smooth air with constant 1G.  It seems I rarely get to fly in that.

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Permalink Reply by Gil DeVault on December 15, 2017 at 8:09am

Joe your right. 

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Permalink Reply by Don Morrisey on December 15, 2017 at 10:20am

Here's another way to skin the cat, for the header tank, wouldn't do this for the wing tanks.  Install a mechanical fuel level probe and couple that with an audible/vibrating alarm that also has a warning light.  The warning light and the alarm would get mounted in the panel.  I have the alarm and tested it while wearing a headset, it is quite loud and vibrates quite rapidly, the warning light is also large, about 3/4" wide.  Also if you want to get a bit fancy, you can install a device that gives a 10 second delay to alarm activation, which in theory should resolve any false alarm issues.  Food for thought...

Mechanical fuel level probe:http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/appages/fuelwarn.php?clickkey...

Alarm: http://www.littelfuse.com/products/other-products-and-accessories/p...

10 second delay device: https://www.electronickits.com/multi-mode-timer-kit/

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Permalink Reply by John M Greiner on January 27, 2018 at 8:38pm

Ya I want to put one on my header tank, that in theory, should be full in all attitudes and conditions, and hopfelly only come on when the header level starts to drop. I will be hard to know how much sloshing will go on and give false positives, but I want to know pretty darn fast if it is dropping for real, ie not fuel coming from my wing tanks or at least not getting into the header tank properly. So it might be difficult to drill and tap the hole in the header tank in the right place for how the fuel behaves.

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