The Challenge:

Designing test setup that could simulate all positions of a fuel sender and validate the desired value of its resistance changes.

The Solution:

Combining the third-party Digital Multi Meter with LabVIEW, NI Integrated Stepper Motor and, Digital I/O for a cost-friendly test solution.

Fuel Sender is the transducer that measures the fuel’s level in the gas tank in the form of the resistance value. It may come with different names such as Fuel Gauge, Fuel Sender Gauge, Gas Gauge, and so on. 

One of our customers’ needs is to be able to test the transducer with a cost-effective solution that measures the value of the resistance itself. Haliatech, as the alliance partner of National Instruments in Indonesia, is humbled to offer the solution. 

The working principle of the fuel sender itself lies in its two main components. They are the float and the potentiometer that connects to it. As one could imagine, the float would float as the level of the fuel rises. As the level in the tank changes, so does the resistance value of the potentiometer. 

To test the transducer, we will need to simulate the position of the float and read the resistance value. We have designed the solution into three main parts, namely:

1. NI Integrated Stepper Motor for moving the float to various positions
2. NI Digital Input Output that handles buttons and indicators (LED and Buzzer)
3. A third-party Digital Multi Meter for reading the value of the resistance of the transducer. 

NI Integrated Stepper Motor offers simple single-axis moves. It also supports Ethernet connectivity so that one can add it to a network and control it with the LabVIEW installed on a PC or even LabVIEW Real-Time target. For the motor of our choice, we picked NI ISM-7411 for its low-cost yet good NI’s platform compatibility. 

For handling the operator’s interaction, NI Digital I/O is chosen. The hardware handles start and stops button testing while also outputs test results with the LED and Buzzer sound. All digital interactions reside in the panel. 

Finally, a third-party Digital Multi Meter reads the value of the resistance changes. NI with LabVIEW is an open platform that supports more than thousands of third-party instruments via drivers. LabVIEW also supports various bus connections such as GPIB, USB, Ethernet, etc.

 With all three components in mind, we have designed our application using LabVIEW, the industrial standard of programming language for test and measurement. LabVIEW offers us the flexibility of a modular ready application that is expandable in the future. It shows with our custom program that deals both configurations of two-wire resistance read and four-wire resistance read. 

Haliatech is proud to be in this collaboration. Should you have any inquiries in regards to this application or NI solution in general, feel free to reach us at sales@haliatech.com. 

Reference:

• NI Data Acquisition
• NI Integrated Stepper Driver and Motor
• NI Instrument Driver Networ

Author Information:

Muhammad Farid Retistianto, ST

Haliatech, Alliance Partner of National Instruments

Bekasi – Indonesia

(+6221) 85508561

farid.retistianto@haliatech.com