Appendix H Monitoring Fuel and Power Usage - jgyates/genmon GitHub Wiki

Monitoring Fuel and Power Usage

The Generator Monitor software has the ability to monitor the power of Evolution and Industrial Controllers as described on this page. In addition, the software has the ability to estimate fuel usage for some models. Fuel usage is only supported on Evolution controllers and only with generator models that have the fuel usage stats added to the software. For these models, a fuel gauge will show up on the main web page. To get an estimated reading of the fuel in the tank, the power log must be reset once the tank is filled (see the Maintenance page) and the tank size must be set by the user on the Settings page.

Software calculates the reading on the "Estimated Fuel" gauge by examining the power log and subtracting the calculated fuel used from the tank size. To get an accurate fuel tank reading:

  1. You must have a supported controller
  2. Set your tank size on the Settings page
  3. Fill your tank
  4. Reset the power log and fuel estimate from the Maintenance page in the web interface.

When you run your generator you should see the software report that your fuel in your tank diminishing.

Fuel consumption is not currently supported on Liquid Cooled Natural Gas generators.

On the advanced settings page (click the icon in the upper left twice for advanced settings) you can set the "Subtract Fuel" parameter to subtract from the fuel level reported in the tank to allow for estimating fuel levels on tank was that was not full when the software was initially setup.

Also on the advanced settings page, the is a setting named "Estimated Load". This value is a decimal representation (e.g. 0.50 = 50%) of the generator load assumed when calculating the remaining run time until the tank is empty.

If you do not have a supported controller or your custom controller does not support a power reading from the controller you could add an external current transformer (CT) to monitor the generator output lines. The add on gencthat.py allows CT to be added to a raspberry pi with an external Hat board (see link).

In addition, Industrial, Nexus and Custom Controllers must have the three settings on the advanced page correctly set up for your specific controller: Fuel consumption rate at half the rated load, Fuel consumption at the full rated load, and the units of volume (gal, or cubic feet) the consumption parameters. These parameters are located on the advanced page.

NOTE Evolution Liquid Cooled Diesel Units have a fuel sensor that can be used for the Fuel Gauge. To enable this see the settings page.