digital gas:oil mixture analyzer

[plutus]

Im currently at the final stage of building oil gas analyzer which is standalone device with its own display. It works like this:
1.Put sample into the device
2.get result of exact oil:gas ratio displayed on lcd screen

As of now device has pretty high accuracy of 97-98% which was measured analyzing around hundred samples couple thousand times than averaging results.

Its multi use device that means you can use it at least for 2-3 years then you may need to clean it up from dust which will be little complex procedure.

Im not going to publicate pictures of the device and source code for now.

What im interested in is how much you would consider to spend to have that kind of device.

Being a small engine mechanic I was searching for something like this for years but couldnt find so decide to build it myself.

All negative and positive comments/suggestions are welcomed.

 

[GrassGuerilla]

Interesting idea. But without some idea of the size etc it's hard to guess how it could be used in the field. Almost would need to be built into the mixed gas container to be practical for field use. Of course cost and durability would be an issue. Otherwise as a stand alone analyzer it would be useful to shops etc. but I doubt many would spend a substantial amount to know the actual ratio at hand, easier to just blame the mix without any stats. Of course, customers would love it, shops would hate it I think.

Subscribed...

 

[Little Al]

Can I reserve commenting until a picture & price are posted.

 

[plutus]

To give visual description of the size its like a 6" cellphone (rectangle) 10cm high. I was thinking to build this not for residential users but for big commercial and shops. One thing is you are blaming customers for wrong mix the other thing to blame big manufacturers like echo or stihl for defective assembly which at the end cause scorrings much look like raw gas issue. And same time keeping backs of customers. Have got into this issues when designers switched from reed valves to piston ported designs with air flow passages built right into the piston itself.

Thanks for comment

 

[ironman_gq]

I could see a shop having a want for one if the price is justifiable.

 

[plutus]

Can I reserve commenting until a picture & price are posted.

Sure you can the only reason im not posting pics is big companies will catch the approach and patent it under closed license. Im going to publicate the hardware and source code at the end. Hopeyou agree and understand with my reasons not going public for now.

 

[Little Al]

Sure you can the only reason im not posting pics is big companies will catch the approach and patent it under closed license. Im going to publicate the hardware and source code at the end. Hopeyou agree and understand with my reasons not going public for now.

No Problem, good luck with your enterprise Just a bit difficult passing comments other than general ,on something without details/info.

 

[KenJax Tree]

This has to be a joke. What is wrong with measuring the oil to figure out the ratio?

 

[plutus]

This has to be a joke. What is wrong with measuring the oil to figure out the ratio?

Its about measuring ratio of already mixed gas.

 

[plutus]

I could see a shop having a want for one if the price is justifiable.

One of my points here is to get understanding how much people would like to spend on having it.

 

[CR888]

The further down in price (cheaper) the bigger the market would be. Once upon a time chain grinders cost a small fortune & and only service shops and industry logger/tree service people owned them, now they are cheap enough that the average homeowner can buy one & get value for money. I think price will dictate your market.

 

[Sportfury70]

I would imagine a consumer version would have to be capped at $50 per unit. However, an equipment rental shop or a lowes or Home Depot could (smell a licensing deal?) could find great use out of that, so a commercial version with memory, menu options, and computer interface would probably be worth several hundred bucks per unit.

I'm working my way through a business degree, so I'm familiar with how important it is to play the margins, but I'm by no means an expert. I assume this is patentable?

 

[plutus]

Consumer version will be around 300-350CAD. All materials and parts used are high quality I didnt want to mess up whole project cos of inaccurate cut part. It may have lcd display but right now its working via pc. Im not thinking of patenting it I have 1 very serious project or invention that I would definitely patent. But analyzer will be available to public without any licenses or other headaches.

 

[Sportfury70]

No patent would be dangerous, and at that price point what's stopping Oregon or Stihl from taking it and selling it for half the price? It's an interesting device but your biggest customer would be B2B dealers, rental stores, and dedicated hobbiests to for a product like that. Marketing it directly to the general consumer would leave potential buyers with sticker shock.

It's your choice, and this is only friendly advice, but if it were mine I'd patent and liscense to oregon or baileys or something. They could take the brunt of the needed capitol for scale and you could simply collect a check with little involvement other than future R&D.

 

[plutus]

If this will be under open project license or whatever its called then dont think any big company will think of a profit from it cos anybody can build it and use it. But my main problem is I dont want to pay huge amount for licensing cos I dont have enough funds to share here and there. My next project will need money which I dont want to spend on patenting analyzer. In few words about big project is that its possible to halt carb jobs 80% if new approach will be used.

 

[Philbert]

I think that it is a great idea for larger shops, depending on the pricing, for diagnostic use, not for mixing fuel.

Assuming that it is accurate, and fast, it would take the guess work out of dumping the fuel from a saw into a Mason jar and judging the color. Digital readouts carry more credibility and authority with customers (even if not more accurate - they just look more accurate, although I have received totally bogus digital battery analyses, with print outs, from service stations trying to sell me a new battery!).

I could also see saw (and other O*P*E) manufacturers recommending these to their higher tier / volume dealers for evaluating warranty issues.

As noted, depends on price, size, accuracy, reliability, ease of use, etc. Anything involving gasoline might need some UL or FM rating by the way.

Just curious, are there other objective tests that a mechanic can do now? Anything with a test tube or meter, like I do with my Tiny Tester for ethanol?
http://www.baileysonline.com/Chains...y-Tester---Alcohol-Ethanol-Content-Tester.axd

Philbert

 

[plutus]

Pretty good points about analyzer.
Didnt get what you want to test like with that ethanol tester you can test ethanol content in gas nothing more I think im not using it its useless. I mean for what we were tought to use that for is useless and meaningless procedure for mechanics. That way they (manufacturers) want to put us mechanics in front line against customers and hide their engineering mistakes that way. Thats why my next project will show that they could solve ethanol issue ,actually I cant even call that an issue , long time ago if they would hire open minded people who are not affraid of making mistakes and loosing their jobs for new inventions.

 

[Philbert]

I was wondering if there was some kind of 'test tube' / high school chemistry type analytical test that a mechanic could use to measure the actual mix ratio in a fuel sample.

You know, something simpler (and cheaper) than a mass spectrometer !

Philbert

 

[plutus]

Thats actually what is my device for . But another approach may be trying to cut oil from gas which will be very hard as even in gasanalyzers they can say what elements are present in the substance but they cant extract oil from gas in simple ways as they used to bond together cos of almost same structure(molecular). But if you can find an element which could absorb gas or oil from mixed structure then you could do a little math and find what mix it was. Hard to write that everything pm me.

 

[LegDeLimber]

One more little aggravation to think over.

We seem to still have trouble with dealers/shops balking at buying the interconnects & software.
And this just to look after (Their brand of) the auto-twiddle carburetors on units that are already out in the marketplace.

The fuel tester price point has been mentioned above and it sounds like the fuel tester might come in at a bit over the, prices for the carburetor test gear.
I've only seen a vague mention of the cost(s) of the carb tools.
You may be cold selling a product that these same dealers will, also, be resistant to.

Not meaning to be a naysayer, just hoping to help with spotting a possible obstacle.