Anyone have or installed a Floscan?

[NoSlack]

Jeff

My experience with Flow Scans is from work. I installed 3 units on our Cat 3208 fire pumps several years ago. The Cats are in hot standby with a jacket water heater that keeps the block at 165 degrees. If we loose fire main pressure they start and are at full load within a second.

That might sound like tuff duty for a diesel but they've been run like that once or twice a week for the past 15 years without a hitch.
The Cat run at 2800 RPM and burn 8 GPH at full rack.

I've never been able to talk myself into putting one on the boat. I run my engine were she sounds the happiest. If I had a Flow Scan and could see that adjusting the trim or RPM would better my economy 5%, that would only save me 2 1/2 gallons over the course of a long day offshore. Even at $2.00 a gallon, I would have to run $10,000 worth of diesel through my engine to save the $500 cost of a Flow Scan.

Mike

[DOGHOUSE26]

I like the 3208s for industrial applications; I installed maybe 30 or so in small co-generation applications @ McDonald's and other small restaurant owners back in the early nineties; we would get 10,000 hours out of them on propane or CNG and not even one breakdown, we just adjusted the valves every 5,000 and I think we got 22,000 out of one of them.

With 150 gallons of fuel I really don't need a floscan;that's 3 average tuna trips(30-40nm from MB) for me and this is the first boat I have owned with a reliable fuel guage! I will never let the tank get that low for fear of filtering all the crud out of the bottom of the tank. I just think it's nice to know how much your burning @ a given RPM. I was curious of the difference between your 40B and our 41s at the same RPM to determine how much the extra 35 horses cost to feed.

[NoSlack]

I think the 41s are better on fuel than 40s. You're pushing 75% more boat around, getting 2.2 to 2.7 NMPG and I'm somewere around 2.6 to 2.8 NMPG.

With a 41 installed in a 23', I would think you could cruise at 25+ knots with the engine lightly loaded and be well above 3 on your milage.

Mike

[chrisc]

Re: Floscan accuracy, I've been able to get mine tuned to within 1-2% accuracy. However, I've made the adjustments over a long period of time to reflect how I run the boat on very long trips (modest cruise speed with a mix of trolling). When making short trips up and down the coast, usually at a fast or very fast cruise speed, it's common for me to be off by 5-10%. The trick for me was figuring out the ratio between idle/troll time and cruise time, and then tweaking the No Load Idle Consumption setting. In my case, I set it to a lower GPH usage than actual, then adjusted the other switch setting from there to get an accurate average. FYI, when idling I essentially get no fuel consumption reading.

Chris.

[yellowfin1]

Chris,

Thanks for that feedback. That was exactly my concern. I was woried that at very slow speeds and at idle that my fuel was not going to be calculated accurately. Example if I let the boat warm up at the dock for 10 minutes at idle and then let the engine idle during a rock cod drift for 15 minutes several times during a trip then my accuracy will basically suck. My gauge indicates about 1/4 GPH at idle. I believe that in reality the ad-41 is really consuming at least 1 gallon per hour? Close enough I guess. I am still happy that I know I am within about 10 gallons of being empty (not that I would ever let it get that low on purpose). Even with the FLOSCAN i will always continue to plan any long trips with at least a 10% buffer for safety.

[Nomad]

Sorry for the delayed response. My FloScan died last summer when Russ called me in on a paddy and I pegged it the needle. The needle stuck and died. I may replace it with a new one his summer.I calibrated the unit over time by adjusting the dip switches for the variance in actually fuel consumed vs the reading. The only problem was that if I ran with the needle pegged for any length of time I couldn't get an accurate reading. 10 GPH is not enough for the 41